Painters on painting

All the certainty artists have about the importance of art can disappear when we try to define why we do what we do.

“I define a painting as a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was and never will be; in better light than has ever shone; in a country that one cannot define nor remember, bot only yearn for; with divinely beautiful forms” - Edward Burne-Jones

“A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people” - Edgar Degas

“The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting” - Vincent van Gogh

“Painting is but another word for feeling “ - John Constable

“Real painters understand with a brush in their hand” - Berthe Morisot

“In art what we want is the certainty that one spark of original genius shall not be extinguished” - Mary Cassatt

“But I could now paint no longer; my broken spirit, bruised with so many horrors, shut itself entirely to my art” - Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Photo by Craig Stevens of Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, F2.8 ISO 400