60+ Creative Painting Quotes with Images by Famous Artists

Painting quotes are an inspiring way to remind us of the beauty of art and its ability to communicate powerful messages. They can range from the inspirational words of famous artists to the thoughts of those who simply appreciate the craft.

Whether you are an aspiring artist, a seasoned professional, or an admirer of brushwork, painting quotes can help provide you with creative motivation and uplifting encouragement.

There are no right or wrong ways to paint because art is all about expressing oneself. The knowledge and insight of accomplished artists can be priceless. Your perspective on art will change, and these words will inspire your creative processes.

These quotes can help you understand the thoughts of artists, regardless of whether you paint for monetary gain or to tell a visual tale.

60 Painting Quotes

Read these inspirational quotes about painting to inspire your creativity and drive yourself to produce works of art. These motivating quotes can help you on your journey to artistic success by helping you see things from new angles.

20 Painting Quotes

1. “Art is a line around your thoughts.” – Gustav Klimt

2. “To be an artist is to believe in life.” – Henry Moore

3. “Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.” – René Magritte

4. “Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination, and encourages people to go further.” – Keith Haring

5. “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Pablo Picasso

6. “The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist’s own spiritual nature.” – George Inness

7. “The principle of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.” – Jerzy Kosinski

8. “Great art picks up where nature ends.” – Marc Chagall

9. “The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.” – Claude Monet

10. “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” – Edward Hopper

11. “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo

12. “Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say ‘almost’ because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor’s ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea.”- Barbara Hepworth

13. “I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.” – Frida Kahlo

14. “If the artist has outer and inner eyes for nature, nature rewards him by giving him inspiration.” – Wassily Kandinsky

15. “What moves those of genius, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.” – Eugene Delacroix

16. “It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.” – Louise Bourgeois

17. “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

18. “The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.” – Joan Miró

19. “To my mind one does not put oneself in place of the past, one only adds a new link.” – Paul Cézanne

20. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle

20 Creative Painting Wall Quotes

21. “I shut my eyes in order to see.” – Paul Gauguin

22. “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” – Auguste Rodin

23. “The beautiful, which is perhaps inseparable from art, is not after all tied to the subject, but to the pictorial representation. In this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it.” – Paul Klee

24. “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.” – Leonardo da Vinci

25. “I have a flood of ideas in my mind. I just follow my vision.” – Yayoi Kusa

26. “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing.  Making your unknown known is the important thing.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

27. “Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

28. “Every artist was first an amateur.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

29. “I am independent! I can live alone and I love to work.” – Mary Cassatt

30. “Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” – Pablo Picasso

31. “The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist.” – Eric Gill

32. “Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” – Salvador Dalí

33. “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” – Bob Ross

34. “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” – Sylvia Plath

35. “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh

36. “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” – Pablo Picasso

37. “Don’t think about making art, just get it done.  Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it.  While they are deciding, make even more art.” – Andy Warhol

38. “I want to make paintings that look as if they were made by a child.” – Jean-Michel Basquiat

39. “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” – Leonardo Da Vinci

40. “Art is the proper task of life. The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

20 Thoughts on Painting

41. “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” – Francis Bacon

42. “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” – Oscar Wilde

43. “Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” – Edgar Degas

44. “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” – Leonardo da Vinci

45. “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.” – Helen Frankenthaler

46. “Every canvas is a journey into a sacred courtyard.” – Lailah Gifty Akita

47. “A picture is a poem without words.” – Horace

48. “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” – Pablo Picasso

49. “Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.” – Jackson Pollock

50. “A painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.” – Paul Gardner

51. “Painting is like silent poetry and music is the speech of angels.”

52. “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

53. “When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God-made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.” – Paul Cezanne

54. “I hope to make something that will not just last, but that over time will become better.” – Francis Bacon

55. “It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to.” – Claude Monet

56. “Color is my day-long obsession, joy, and torment.” – Claude Monet

57. “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” – Pablo Picasso

58. “Painting is hard work, harder than any other job I can imagine.” – Lee Krasner

59. “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas

60. “A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.” – Oscar Wilde

61. “The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.” – Leonardo da Vinci

End Words

A study in the journal Art Therapy found that doing creative things like painting can have a positive effect on our mental health by lowering stress and enhancing feelings of well-being. This emphasizes the healing value of art.