Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars.

Khalil Gibran

Khalil Gibran (born Gibran Khalil Gibran bin Mikhā’īl bin Sa’ad; Arabic جبران خليل جبران بن ميکائيل بن سعد, January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931[citation needed]) also known as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer. Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of the Ottoman Mount Lebanon mutasarrifate), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career. He is chiefly known for his 1923 book The Prophet, a series of philosophical essays written in English prose. An early example of Inspirational fiction, the book sold well despite a cool critical reception, and became extremely popular in the 1960s counterculture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalil_Gibran

Art should astonish, transmute, transfix. One must work at the tissue between truth and paranoia.

Brett Whiteley

Opera House 1982

Brett Whiteley, AO (7 April 1939 – 15 June 1992) was an Australian artist. One of the best-known Australian painters of the 20th century, he is collected in most Australian galleries. He had many shows in his career, and travelled extensively around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Whiteley

I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

Jean Michel Basquiat

Mona Lisa 1983

Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist and the first African-American painter to become an international art star. He gained popularity first as a graffiti artist in New York City, and then as a successful 1980s-era Neo-expressionist artist. Basquiat’s paintings continue to influence modern-day artists and sell for high prices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Basquiat

It doesn’t matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said.

Jackson Pollock

Lavender Mist 1950

Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock

I’ve never believed in God, but I believe in Picasso.

Diego Rivera

El Venedor de Alcatraces 1941

Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was born Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez in Guanajuato, Gto. He was a world-famous Mexican painter, an active Communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo, 1929–1939 and 1940–1954 (her death). Rivera’s large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Rivera

With the most primitive means the artist creates something which the most ingenious and efficient technology will never be able to create.

Kasimir Malevich

The Aviator 1914

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (Russian: Казимир Северинович Малевич, Polish: Kazimierz Malewicz, Ukrainian: Казимир Северинович Малевич [kazɪˈmɪr sɛʋɛˈrɪnoʋɪtʃ mɑˈlɛʋɪtʃ], German: Kasimir Malewitsch, Belarusian: Казіме́р Мале́віч), (February 23, 1879, previously 1878: see below – May 15, 1935) was a painter and art theoretician, pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement. Malevich worked in Russia, although he was of Polish descent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevich

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Will Durant

William James Durant (5 November 1885 – 7 November 1981) was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for the 11-volume The Story of Civilization, written in collaboration with his wife Ariel and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for his book, The Story of Philosophy, written in 1926, which was considered “a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy.”

They were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant

He who offends others, does not secure himself.

Lenoardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( pronunciation (help·info), April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and “his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote”.

Born the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice and spent his last years in France, at the home awarded him by Francis I.

Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, respectively, their fame approached only by Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. Leonardo’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on everything from the Euro to text books to t-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

Pablo Picasso

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Musicians 1921

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. Commonly known simply as Picasso, he is one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art. He is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937), his portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso demonstrated uncanny artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence; during the first decade of the twentieth century his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. Picasso’s creative genius manifested itself in numerous mediums, including painting, sculpture, drawing, and architecture. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortunes throughout his life, making him the best-known figure in twentieth century art. His fame has continued after his death, firmly establishing his status as one of the greatest artists in Western history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite — getting something down

Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron (born March 4, 1948[1] in Illinois) is an American teacher, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and journalist. She is perhaps most famous for her book The Artist’s Way (1992). She also has written many other non-fiction works, short stories, and essays as well as novels, plays, musicals, and screenplays.