110+ Robert Henri Quotes On Art, Artwork And World

Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher who spearheaded the Ashcan School of American art. He was a leader of the group of painters known as "The Eight," who protested the restrictive exhibition practices of the National Academy of Design. He was a mentor to many of the leading American modernists of the early 20th century. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Robert Henri on art, life, artwork.

Top 10 Robert Henri Quotes

1. Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.
2. Good composition is like a suspension bridge - each line adds strength and takes none away.
3. Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.
4. The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
5. The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook.
6. Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway.
7. Let every student enter the school with this advice. No matter how good the school is, his education is in his own hands. All education must be self education.
8. Art is an outsider, a gypsy over the face of the earth.
9. There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.
10. No work of Art is really ever finished. They only stop at good places.

Robert Henri Short Quotes

• A mountain seen in the haze of distance must nevertheless look a solid heavy mountain.
• A drawing should be a verdict on the model. Don't confuse a drawing with a map.
• In great art there is no beginning and end in point of time. All time is comprehended.
• All the past up to a moment ago is your legacy. You have a right to it.
• Knowledge of anatomy is a tool like good brushes.
• All education must be self-education.
• Cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them.
• If the artist's will is not strong he will see all kinds of unessential things.
• We make our discoveries while in the state [of high functioning] because then we are clear-sighted.
• Color is only beautiful when it means something.

Robert Henri Quotes About Art

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

Good composition is like a suspension bridge; each line adds strength and takes none away... Making lines run into each other is not composition. There must be motive for the connection. Get the art of controlling the observer – that is composition. — Robert Henri

Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable, and we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life's experience. — Robert Henri

An artist's job is to surprise himself. Use all means possible. — Robert Henri

Art appreciation, like love, cannot be done by proxy: It is a very personal affair and is necessary to each individual. — Robert Henri

Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness. — Robert Henri

All real works of art look as though they were done in joy. — Robert Henri

There is no art without contemplation. — Robert Henri

Paint what you feel. Paint what you see. Paint what is real to you. — Robert Henri

The only sensible way to regard the art life is that it is a privilege you are willing to pay for... You may cite honors and attentions and even money paid, but I would have you note that these were paid a long time after the creator had gone through his struggles. — Robert Henri

Robert Henri Quotes About Life

Today must not be a souvenir of yesterday, and so the struggle is everlasting. Who am I today? What do I see today? How shall I use what I know, and how shall I avoid being victim of what I know? Life is not repetition. — Robert Henri

In a tree there is a spirit of life, a spirit of growth and a spirit of holding its head up. — Robert Henri

Each man must take the material that he finds at hand, see that in it there are the big truths of life, the fundamentally big forces, and then express in his art whatever is the cause of his pleasure. — Robert Henri

What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of this business of making a picture. — Robert Henri

We are not here to do what has already been done. — Robert Henri

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

Because we are saturated with life, because we are human, our strongest motive is life, humanity; and the stronger the motive back of the line the stronger, and therefore more beautiful, the line will be. — Robert Henri

Life is finding yourself. It is a spirit development. — Robert Henri

Do whatever you do intensely. The artist is the man who leaves the crowd and goes pioneering. With him there is an idea which is his life. — Robert Henri

Students work in schools making life studies for years, win prizes for life studies and find in the end that they know practically nothing of the human figure. They have acquired the ability to copy. — Robert Henri

Robert Henri Quotes About World

It seems to me that before a man tries to express anything to the world he must recognize in himself an individual, a new one, very distinct from others. — Robert Henri

Each sensation is precious, protect it, cherish it, keep it. Never give it away. You must develop that balance which allows all of the world to come in to you, and only that which you have expressed in your art to move back out again into the world. — 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

There is nothing in all the world more beautiful or significant of the laws of the universe than the nude human body. — Robert Henri

Many things that come into the world are not looked into. The individual says 'My crowd doesn't run that way.' I say, don't run with crowds. — Robert Henri

Art is the giving by each man of his evidence to the world. Those who wish to give, love to give, discover the pleasure of giving. Those who give are tremendously strong. — Robert Henri

Robert Henri Quotes About Love

Art appreciation, like love, cannot be done by proxy. — Robert Henri

The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art. — Robert Henri

There are pictures that manifest education and there are pictures that manifest love. — Robert Henri

Renoir had not only a great interest in human character, in human feeling, but had also a great love for the people he painted. — Robert Henri

Robert Henri Quotes About Expressive

A picture should be the expression of the will of the painter. — Robert Henri

The artist should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express. — Robert Henri

Self-education only produces expressions of self. — Robert Henri

Things should all be moving toward the expression of a great idea. — Robert Henri

Art after all is but an extension of language to the expression of sensations too subtle for words. — Robert Henri

Count on big lines to express your ideas. — Robert Henri

To have ideas one must have imagination. To express ideas one must have science. — Robert Henri

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. — Robert Henri

There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land. — 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

Robert Henri Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. — Robert Henri

You form a society: that limits you. Adopt a name, and you've limited yourself again; draw up a constitution and bylaws and you've made a groove, a rut, that hampers your growth. You think you can fix your course and move straight along it. But sometimes the important thing is to strike out sidewise. — Robert Henri

It's a wrong idea that a master is a finished person. Masters are very faulty; they haven't learned everything and they know it. — Robert Henri

The world will see many fashions of art and most of the world will follow the fashions and make none. These cults - these 'movements' - are absolutely necessary, or at any rate their causes are, for somewhere in their centres are the ones who bear the Idea, the ones who have questioned, 'But what do I think?' and 'How shall I say it best? — Robert Henri

Know what the old masters did. Know how they composed their pictures, but do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them, and they are wonderful. They made their language. You make yours. All the past can help you. — Robert Henri

I am interested in the size of your intention. It is better to overstate the important than to understate it. — Robert Henri

A Curve does not exist in its full power until contrasted with a straight line. — Robert Henri

The pernicious influence of the prize and medal giving in art is so great that it should be stopped. History proves that juries in art have been generally wrong. — Robert Henri

There are forms that can only be seen when you are near a painting, others only appear when you are far away. — Robert Henri

A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods. — Robert Henri

The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish, and spirits must flow. There must be courage. There are no easy ruts to get into which lead to happiness. — Robert Henri

Your painting is the marking of your progression into nature, a sensation of something you see way beyond the two pretty colors over there. Don't stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit. — Robert Henri

Completion does not depend on material representation. The work is done when that special thing has been said. — Robert Henri

Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself. — Robert Henri

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it. — Robert Henri

The fun of living is that we have to make ourselves, after all. — Robert Henri

Those who cannot begin do not finish. — 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

The ignorant are to be found as much among the educated as among the uneducated. — Robert Henri

There is nothing more entertaining than to have a frank talk with yourself. Few do it-frankly. Educating yourself is getting acquainted with yourself. — Robert Henri

Your style is the way you talk in paint. — Robert Henri

There has never been a painting that was more beautiful than nature. The model does not unfold herself to you, you must rise to her. She should be the inspiration for your painting. No man has ever over-appreciated a human being. — Robert Henri

Work always as if you were a master, expect from yourself a masterpiece. — Robert Henri

The more simply you see, the more simply you will render. People see too much, scatteringly. — Robert Henri

Through art mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. — Robert Henri

Find out what you really like if you can. Find out what is really important to you. Then sing your song. You will have something to sing about and your whole heart will be in the singing. — Robert Henri

If a certain activity, such as painting, becomes the habitual mode of expression, it may follow that taking up the painting materials and beginning work with them will act suggestively and so presently evoke a flight into the higher state. — Robert Henri

After all, the goal is not making art. It is living a life. Those who live their lives will leave the stuff that is really art. — Robert Henri

Lines are results, do not draw them for themselves. — Robert Henri

Through art, mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. They are the bonds of a great Brotherhood. Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space cannot separate them. — Robert Henri

Has your drawing the meaning you saw in the model at first? — Robert Henri

The real artist's work is a surprise to himself. — Robert Henri

When we respect the nude, we will no longer have any shame about it. — Robert Henri

Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. — Robert Henri

Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. A worker or painter should enjoy his work, else the observer will not enjoy it. — Robert Henri

I can think of no greater happiness than to be clear-sighted and know the miracle when it happens. And I can think of no more real life than the adventurous one of living and liking and exclaiming the things of one's own time. — Robert Henri

Keep a bad drawing until by study you have found out why it is bad. — Robert Henri

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

It is the common defect of modern art study. Too many students do not know why they draw. — Robert Henri

I am always sorry for the Puritan, for he guided his life against desire and against nature. He found what he thought was comfort, for he believed the spirit's safety was in negation, but he has never given the world one minute's joy or produced one symbol of the beautiful order of nature. He sought peace in bondage and his spirit became a prisoner. — Robert Henri

Fight with yourself when you paint, not with the model. A student is one who struggles with himself for order. — Robert Henri

The model is not to be copied, but to be realized. — Robert Henri

If you do not act on a suggestion at first, you grow dull to its message. — Robert Henri

Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out. — Robert Henri

Don't worry about your originality. You couldn't get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do. — Robert Henri

The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish, and spirits must flow. There must be courage. There are no easy ruts to get into which lead to happiness. A man must become interesting to himself and must become actually expressive before he can be happy. — Robert Henri

In certain books—some way in the first few paragraphs you know that you have met a brother. — Robert Henri

You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing: wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you. — Robert Henri

It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do. — Robert Henri

Be a warhorse for work and enjoy even the struggle against defeat. — Robert Henri

The reason for the survival of the award system is purely commercial. — Robert Henri

The most vital things in the look of a landscape endure only for a moment. Work should be done from memory; memory of that vital moment. — Robert Henri

Art tends toward balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in. — Robert Henri

Colors are beautiful when they are significant. — 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

You pass people on the street, some are for you, some are not. — Robert Henri

Develop your visual memory. Draw everything you have drawn from the model from memory as well. — Robert Henri

Self-acquainta nce is a rare condition. — Robert Henri

Life Lessons by Robert Henri

1. Robert Henri's life teaches us to be passionate about our work and to never give up on our dreams. He believed that art should be accessible and that everyone should be able to enjoy it, regardless of their background.
2. Robert Henri also taught us to be open to new ideas and to embrace change. He was a great believer in experimentation and was always pushing the boundaries of art.
3. Finally, Robert Henri showed us that art can be used to express our emotions and to tell stories. He encouraged us to use art as a way to communicate with the world and to make a difference.