Favorite Sculpture Quote

[JasonGillespie]

I recently came across a gem of a site and a quote that has become my new favorite about this art form of ours.

Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump.
Auguste Rodin

I was wondering if other members had any favorite remarks by artists past or present pertaining to sculpture. Post them if you've got them.

The site I found is: http://quote.robertgenn.com/

[ironman]

Hi Jason, That's a beaut!

"Everything imagined is reality, the mind cannot conceive of unreal things!"
David Smith.

Have a great day,
Jeff

[GlennT]

This is a paraphrase of a quote, I think by John Singer Sargent;

" A portrait is a face with a smile that isn't quite right"

[Darkcloud]

Too much mud!... Amadeo Modigliani's reaction to Rodin's influence as quoted by Jacques Lipchitz... The only way to save sculpture was to start carving again, direct carving in stone... Modigliani was working on an ensamble of limestone sculptures at that time...

[evaldart]

" Take something and do something to it. Then do something else to it. " Jasper Johns

[GlennT]

" I have found true art to be at one with true religion " Richard Wagner

" That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labor......especialy is this so when he is at work at anything in which he specially excels. " William Morris

" Oh, when will man again his lax loins gird?
When will he leave soft Circe and her sty
Or learn to labor without looking down?
Thou, thou my country-in a dream I heard
It was thy sons would dare the old sweet sky
And bring back beauty for the earth to crown. "
Wendell Phillips Stafford

[sculptor]

"You're blocking my light!"

[JamesW]

'The artist as an overspecialised aesthetic object maker has been anachronistic for a long time already.' Miwon Kwon

[Tired Iron]

"If selling a piece is painful, keep adding zeros to the end of the price till it isn't painful to part with it."

Stephen Chambers

[fused]

"To see far is one thing, going there is another."
"Nothing grows in the shadow of a great tree."... Constantin Brancusi (http://www.granneman.com/blog/2006/06/01/bird-in-flight-brancusi-us-customs-law/)
I have seen this response (http://quote.robertgenn.com/auth_search.php?authid=25) to Rodin in many forms over the years.



"Talking about art is like french kissing on a telephone." ... Terry Allen

"You can be in my dream, if I can be in yours." ... Bob Dylan

[Julianna]

"You're blocking my light!"

I think that's my new favourite!

[evaldart]

"Art, for the most part, is about concentration, solitude, and determination. Its really not about other peoples needs and assumptions. I'm not interested in the notion that art serves something. Art is useless, not useful."
Richard Serra

[Aaron Schroeder]

" Well it might not be right but it sure is late ".

and

" Cheap, Fast, Good, Pick Two ".

[PAULHT]

My 2 favourites
"Sculptors aren't stupid like Painters"- Marcel Duchamp
"The important thing is not to look but to see"- Rodin

[circeart]

"BEING AN ARTIST/SCULPTOR ISN'T WHAT YOU DO, IT'S WHO YOU ARE".

[circeart]

Oh, this has to be my least favorite quote. Some wiseguy once said to me after asking me what I did for a living, "Oh I know, you make those dust collectors my wife clutters our house with!".........(Ouch!) :eek: :mad:

[evaldart]

In my painting studio about twenty years ago in Houston Texas a very underknown painter by the name of Ron Hoover put forth the best advice to me I had ever heard. I think of these words everyday: "Take it and go!" (pronounced in a barely decipherable Texas drawl, "Takeet'n'go!"

[cooljamesx1]

If anyone has read joseph conrad's preface to Nigger of Narcissus, it is one of my favorite peices of litterature about art. :cool:

[Alfred]

"One who loves a statue loves not the clay, not the plaster or the bronze, but the achievement of the sculptors mind." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, than all the nonsence of their stone ideal." - Lord Byron

"Without freedom, No art; Art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others." - Albert Camus

"An artist must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye."
- Michelangelo

My proffesor always added to the Michelangelo quote by saying "... but only after he's learned to carry them in the hand."

These are just some of my favorites.

[Cantab]

In Carrara, Italy, the sculptor Boutros Romhein can be heard shouting at his studio, day after day, 'Lavolare!, Lavolare!'. That's 'Work! Work!'

[desertrock]

"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. "
Friedrich Nietzsche

"There is no substitute for feeling the stone, the metal, the plaster, or the wood in the hand; to feel its weight; to feel its texture; to struggle with it in the world rather than in the mind alone." (William M. Dupree)

"Within every block of wood and stone, there dwells a spirit, waiting to be released." (Hap Hagood)

"Where the material ends, art begins." (Etienne Hajdu)

"A sculptor is a person obsessed with the form and shape of things." (Henry Moore)

Mark

[StevenW]

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all. Michelangelo

[jim]

One eye sees, the other feels!

Paul klee

[vince99]

The one and only!


Should we stop these bickering?

Merlion

[oscar]

I think it was Cezanne who said, "sculpture is what you back into when viewing a painting".

From my father, "cut it twice and it's still too short".
To this day I can't work with wood. I work in the land of almost, steel. An almost fit is a perfect fit! Just slap in the weld!

Andy Warhol said this or something like this, "if you can't make it quick, don't make it".
So many people put so much time into their work and never get compensated for it. Course quick is extremely relative.

"A job is the artist's worst enemy".

"Make it big and paint it red."

[oscar]

I think it was Cezanne who said, "sculpture is what you back into when viewing a painting".

From my father, "cut it twice and it's still too short".
To this day I can't work with wood. I work in the land of almost, steel. An almost fit is a perfect fit! Just slap in the weld!

Andy Warhol said this or something like this, "if you can't make it quick, don't make it".
So many people put so much time into their work and never get compensated for it. Course quick is extremely relative.

"A job is the artist's worst enemy".

"Make it big and paint it red."

[ironman]

Hi Oscar, Your last quote, "make it big and paint it red" must be from Mark DeSuvero.
Have a great day,
Jeff

[Cantab]

Best quote so far for me: "A sculptor is a person obsessed with the form and shape of things." (Henry Moore)

[evaldart]

"nothing exists until or unless it is observed" William S Burroughs

[EJB]

"But what do you really do for a living?"

-anonymous

[dondougan]

. . . a diary, journal, repository, laboratory, picture gallery, museum, sanctuary, observatory, key . . . the core of a labyrinth, a clearing house for dreams and visions. It is childhood regained. Joseph Cornell

One eye sees, the other feels. Paul Klee

The first mistake of Art is to assume that it's serious. Lester Bangs

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it. Anthony Burgess

Abstract Art: A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Al Capp

If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens. Grandma Moses

"Give me a ticket to wherever it is." a passenger to a conductor on a train as overheard by Loren Eiseley

"Shut up," he explained. Ring Lardner

[frozenimage]

"Things are not as they are, they are as you see them."

Quotest Unknown

[justme]

"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented, as a consolation prize." Robert Hughes, art critic.

[ironman]

Ain't that the truth!!!!!!!!

[allenring]

"Creativity takes courage", Henri Matissse

Andy Warhol:

"Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."

"I do the same thing everyday. I go to work and paint. I try to turn out as many pictures as I can."


"Art is either plagiarism or revolution." Paul Gauguin

"An empty canvas is a universe of infinite potential; then it gets mucked up with a bunch of paint." Allen Ring

[philpraxis]

St Exupery "A perfect thing is not something you can't add to, but something you can't substract from"

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution" - Paul Gauguin

"The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others." Sol Lewitt

[mythmkr]

These are all of my favorites, minus the repeats you all have already said!

The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.
- Michelangelo

The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.
- Auguste Rodin

The greatest artist has no conception which a single block of white marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand obedient to the mind can penetrate to this image.
- Michelangelo

"The object of art is to give life shape."
- Jean Anouilh

"In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption."
- Raymond Chandler

[obseq]

"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented, as a consolation prize." Robert Hughes, art critic.


....And cue in the deluge of self-effacing artists! ;)

[merelees]

There are some great ones in "The Agony and the Ecstasy" by Irving Stone.

"Every piece has to be sculpted 360 times, because at each change of degree it becomes a different piece."

"It was his desire to communicate his existence in space."

[evaldart]

"What is art? We ought to very simply let it be what the artist says it is." David Smith

[underfoot]

" Some artists should never be allowed to talk about their own art"

John Mcdonald- art critic Sydney morning herald

[Blake]

"An artist who can stir a profound and insightful reaction that adds value and meaning to one's life is an artist whose work is important."
I have no idea who said it but it is certainly one of my goals within my work.
Blake

[evaldart]

"A critic is someone who meddles in something that is not his business." Mallarme

[GlennT]

Thanks Blake. That quote was from a famous unknown artist-me!

And I would say that you are doing a fine job of realizing your goals!

GlennT

[Blake]

GlennT
I am sorry that I was unable to attribute it to you in the first post.

"An artist who can stir a profound and insightful reaction that adds value and meaning to one's life is an artist whose work is important."
Mr. Glenn R. Terry
Famous sculptor and writer.

Kind Regards
Blake

[underfoot]

"It is the job of a critic to be one up on the artist without actually
tampering with the canvas. To show that it is really you (the critic)
who should have created the work,if you only had had the time.
And since you hadn't , you are glad that someone else has,
although obviously it might have been done much better"
Stephen Potter

[oscar]

"It is the problem of the child to become an artist and it is the problem of the artist to remain a child."

Cezanne

"I would rather fault doubt then concede to irrelevance."