Artist and author, Peggy Hadden, has compiled a collection of hundreds of quotes from artists on a range of subjects relating to the celebration and practice of art. The author is a frequent writer on career issues for artists, on subjects like identifying markets, selling works and self‐promotion, and the quest for inspiration. This collection of quotes will be a source of inspiration for practising artists as subjects covered look at aspects of the creative process and the joy and struggle all artists encounter.
Artists included come from all periods in art, from Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgio Vasari and Cennino Cennini, to twentieth‐century artists, such as Edward Weston, Louis Kahn, Picasso and Christo. Quotes have also been selected from important thinkers, philosophers and writers; for example, Aristotle, John Keats, Sigmund Freud, Willa Cather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Samuel Johnson, Lao‐Tzu, John Berger, Arthur Schopenhauer and John Ruskin. However, it should be noted that the vast majority of quotes are taken from visual artists, with just a slight but forgivable bias towards Americans. Subjects covered all relate to the practice of art and the nature of the artistic profession. The range is wide, but examples include light, colour, nature, other artists, beauty, the working process, emotion and materials. A total of 28 topics are covered in all, with one section devoted exclusively to the thoughts and writings of Picasso.
The quotes really speak for themselves and the following examples will give you a flavour for the book. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850‐1894) writes on creativity, “Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral: a thing so simple and specious as a statue to the first glance, and yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest in detail”. Other quotes are very practical. Take Charles Hawthorne (1872‐1930) writing of the working process. “Don’t be too mechanical about reflections. The light on the water should come up to the edge of the boat a little stronger. Reflections in water are lower in key than the thing itself”. On the Bohemian life and perhaps less attractive aspects of artists, Bernardino Ramazzini (c.1700) writes “Painters are subject to tremblings of the joints, blackness of the teeth, discoloured complexions, melancholy, and the loss of the sense of smell”.
This collection of quotes will delight and inspire artists and art enthusiasts. It is a book into which you can dip for pleasure, use for reference or just browse for inspiration.
