Robert Henri - Artist Quotes

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An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.

Robert Henri
When the motives of artists are profound, when they are at their work as a result of deep consideration, when they believe in the importance of what they are doing, their work creates a stir in the world.

Robert Henri
I have heard it very often said that an artist does not need intelligence, that his is the province of the soul

Robert Henri
Artists must be men of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers; read, study and think a great deal of life...

Robert Henri
In every human being there is the artist, and whatever his activity, he has an equal chance with any to express the result of his growth and his contact with life. I don't believe any real artist cares whether what he does is 'art' or not. Who, after all, knows what art is?

Robert Henri
When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.

Robert Henri
It is harder to see than it is to express. The whole value of art rests in the artist's ability to see well into what is before him.

Robert Henri
The artist should have a powerful will. He should be powerfully possessed by one idea

Robert Henri
The true artist regards his work as a means of talking with men [and women], of saying his say to himself and to others. It is not a question of pay...

Robert Henri
Everything depends on the attitude of the artist toward his subject. It is essential.

Robert Henri
An artist must first of all respond to his subject, he must be filled with emotion toward that subject and then he must make his technique so sincere, so translucent that it may be forgotten, the value of the subject shining through it.

Robert Henri
Strokes carry a message whether you will it or not. The stroke is just like the artist at the time he makes it. All the certainties, all the uncertainties, all the bigness of his spirit and the littlenesses are in it.

Robert Henri