Man Ray Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him.

Man Ray
An original is a creation motivated by desire.
Any reproduction of an original is motivated by necessity.
The original is the result of an automatic process, the reproduction, of a mechanical process. In other words: Inspiration then information; each validates the other.
All other considerations are beyond the scope of these statements.
It is marvelous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

Man Ray
Each one of us, in his timidity, has a limit beyond which he is outraged. It is inevitable that he who by concentrated application has extended this limit for himself, should arouse the resentment of those who have accepted conventions which, since accepted by all, require no initiative of application. And this resentment generally takes the form of meaningless laughter or of criticism, if not persecution.

Man Ray
Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask "how", while others of a more curious nature will ask "why". Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

Man Ray
The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.

Man Ray
Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.

Man Ray
It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.

Man Ray
One of the satisfactions of a genius is his will-power and obstinacy.

Man Ray
Throughout time painting has alternately been put to the service of the Church, the State, arms, individual patronage, scientific phenomena, anecdote and decoration … all the marvelous works that have been painted, whatever the sources of inspiration, still live for us because of absolute qualities they possess in common. The creative force and the expressiveness of painting reside materially in the colour and texture of pigments, in the possibilities of form invention and organisation, and in the flat plane on which these elements are brought into play.

Man Ray
There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love. There are simply different ways of doing it.

Man Ray
I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.

Man Ray
I have been accused of being a joker. But the most successful art to me involves humor.

Man Ray
Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is dada, and will not tolerate a rival.

Man Ray
To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.

Man Ray
A certain amount of contempt for the material employed to express an idea is indispensable to the purest realization of this idea.

Man Ray
An effort impelled by desire must also have an automatic or subconscious energy to aid its realization.

Man Ray