Art Technique Quotes & Sayings

The writer who develops a beautiful style, but has nothing to say, represents a kind of arrested esthetic development; he is like a pianist who acquires a brilliant technique by playing finger-exercises, but never gives a concert. — Ayn Rand

Repetitiveness and discipline are the secrets of cake decorating. The art comes from the meticulous technique, the way it does for a dancer. — Ron Ben-Israel

To know whether photography is or is not an art matters little. What is important is to distinguish between good and bad photography. By good is meant that photography which accepts all the limitations inherent in photographic technique and takes advantage of the possibilities and characteristics the medium offers. By bad photography is mean that which is done, one may say, with a kind of inferiority complex, with no appreciation of what photography itself offers: but on the contrary, recurring to all sorts of imitations. — Tina Modotti

Gradually, ... the aspect of science as knowledge is being thrust into the background by the aspect of science as the power of manipulating nature. It is because science gives us the power of manipulating nature that it has more social importance than art. Science as the pursuit of truth is the equal, but not the superior, of art. Science as a technique, though it may have little intrinsic value, has a practical importance to which art cannot aspire. — Bertrand Russell

It takes great technique, tremendous discipline and energy and practice, and damn few are capable. Art is confidence. Technique makes it possible to achieve artistic greatness, but doesn't guarantee it. The great piano artists are not the ones who are best playing Clementi exercises. — Dirk Benedict

Contained within a given lesson or particular technique is the essence of all techniques. You imitate and study a particular form to grasp the universal principles that allow the technique to work in the first place and that will finally enable you to transcend the form itself to discover the formless. — H.E. Davey

Art is never decoration, embellishment; instead, it is work of enlightenment. Art, in other words, is a technique for acquiring liberty. — Bruce Lee

Instead of art I have taught philosophy. Though technique for me is a big word, I never have taught how to paint. All my doing was to make people to see. — Josef Albers

Habitualization devours objects, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war. If all the complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.

Art exists to help us recover the sensation of life; it exists to make us feel things, to make the stone stony. The end of art is to give a sensation of the object seen, not as recognized. The technique of art is to make things 'unfamiliar,' to make forms obscure, so as to increase the difficulty and the duration of perception. The act of perception in art is an end in itself and must be prolonged. In art, it is our experience of the process of construction that counts, not the finished product. — Victor Shklovsky

When they were in school, Peter used to say that everything you do is a self-portrait. It might look like 'Saint George and the Dragon' or 'The Rape of the Sabine Women,' but the angle you use, the lighting, the composition, the technique, they're all you. You are every color and brushstroke. — Chuck Palahniuk

Shklovsky, "Art as Technique" (1917)
Art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to
make the stone
stony
. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are
perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects
"unfamiliar," to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception
because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.
Art
is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important. — Elizabeth Bishop

True art was more than beauty; it was more than technique. It was not just imitation. — Brandon Sanderson

If the European grows accustomed not to rule, a generation and a half will be sufficient to bring the old continent, and the whole world along with it, into mortal inertia, intellectual sterility, universal barbarism. It is only the illusion of rule, and the discipline of responsibility which it entails, that can keep Western minds in tension. Science, art, technique, and all the rest live on the tonic atmosphere created by the consciousness of authority. If this is lacking, the European will gradually become degraded. Minds will no longer have the radical faith in themselves which impels them, energetic, daring, tenacious, towards the capture of great new ideas in every order of life. The European will inevitably become a day-to-day man. Incapable of creative, specialized effort, he will always be falling back on yesterday, on custom, on routine. He will turn into a commonplace, conventional, empty creature, like the Greeks of the decadence and those of the Byzantine epoch. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

The mere mechanical technique of acting can be taught, but the spirit that is to give life to lifeless forms must be born in a man. No dramatic college can teach its pupils to think or to feel. It is Nature who makes our artists for us, though it may be Art who taught them their right mode of expression. — Oscar Wilde

Art has to be, you know, trade itself, conform to the old strict guidelines set forth by how it was going to act in the future. — Immortal Technique

Ballet is like football. I don't understand a footballer's technique but I can see when he's playing brilliantly. People don't like ballet because they think they don't understand it. Actually they do. It's the most primitive form of appeal. — Robert Helpmann

Art is an evolution of techniques and materials from past to present and we can't stop learning. — Robert Warren

If you want to know what true art is: Go outside on a clear night, wait until it gets very, very dark, then look up! You will see no rules of composition, no evidence of superior technique. Yet, you will be staring into the very face of pure, unadulterated beauty and wonder. That is the unattainable Ideal for which I must constantly strive. — Derek R. Audette

But when I sat listening with the other Aikido students and teachers on the mat at the Kumano Juku Dojo, all of us dripping with sweat and focused intently on the practice of Aikido in the here and now, the Floating Bridge of Heaven did not feel like an abstract reference to a story of the past. It was a vivid invitation to venture into the world of the spirit, and to integrate that sacred spirit of creativity into all of our actions. It was a compelling reminder that to O-Sensei, and by extension to all sincere students of his art, Aikido was far more than physical technique. — Linda Holiday

My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker. — Thomas Hardy

We're all pros already. 1) We show up every day 2) We show up no matter what 3) We stay on the job all day 4) We are committed over the long haul 5) The stakes for us are high and real 6) We accept remuneration for our labor 7) We do not overidentify with our jobs 8 ) We master the technique of our jobs 9) We have a sense of humor about our jobs 10) We receive praise or blame in the real world — Steven Pressfield

It's often about the simple things, isn't it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult. — Linda Olsson

Salesmanship, too, is an art; the perfection of its technique requires study and practice. — James Cash Penney

Art is a thing so much of the imagination, of the soul, that it is difficult to descend to the fundamentals of technique and yet make it plain to the student that these are but the 'means' and not an end in themselves. — John F. Carlson

Art is mind and heart and touch as much and more than it is mere instrument, technique - without which however it cannot exist at all. — Bernard Berenson

Let me tell you something about the beauty of destruction. There is a distinct art in boxing, because there is method, strategy, technique rules and all the bells and whistles that the general public knows. However, since the beginning of time mankind was destined to appreciate the art of combat; and that is the mortal sacrifice - you put yourself out there and display a virtual painting, an interactive canvas that portrays the nature of the human body and what it's capable of, and as an outcome, the object of combat is not to sacrifice yourself to entertain spectators, no, but to make the other bastard sacrifice himself to entertain spectators - thus comes the art of honor. It's not a thirst for blood, not at all - but an astonishment, an appreciation for the capabilities of a human that bares his soul naked for the art of combat using strictly his body. That's entertainment. — Ghaleya Aldhafiri

Marketing is the act of inventing the product. The effort of designing it. The craft of producing it. The art of pricing it. The technique of selling it. — Seth Godin

We might do better if we saw art as a technique, not a mystique. — A.S. Byatt

This superficial blurring has something to do with the incapacity I have just mentioned. I can make no statement about reality clearer than my own relationship to reality; and this has a great deal to do with imprecision, uncertainty, transience, incompleteness, or whatever. But this doesn't explain the pictures. At best it explains what led to their being painted. — Gerhard Richter

Enchantment produces a Secondary World, into which both designer and spectator can enter, to the satisfaction of their senses while they are inside; but in its purity it is artistic in desire and purpose. Magic produces, or pretends to produce, an alteration in the Primary World. It does not matter by whom it is said to be practised, fay or mortal, it remains distinct from the other two; it is not an art but a technique; its desire is power in this world, domination of things and wills. — J.R.R. Tolkien

In engineering, as in other creative arts, we must learn to do analysis to support our efforts in synthesis. One cannot build a beautiful and functional bridge without a knowledge of steel and dirt, and a considerable mathematical technique for using this knowledge to compute the properties of structures. Similarly, one cannot build a beautiful computer system without a deep understanding of how to "previsualize" the process generated by the code one writes. — Gerald Jay Sussman

No fantasy, however rich, no technique, however masterly, no penetration into the psychology of the opponent, however deep, can make a chess game a work of art, if these qualities do not lead to the main goal - the search for truth. — Vasily Smyslov

For experimental artists, the goal is often quite different. While the process of creating still ends with a finished work of some sort, the end result is generally unknown. It's often more about exploring a specific concept, technique, or tool, as opposed to constructing something the artist has envisioned. There are exceptions, of course; this is experimental art, after all. — Clif Johnston

Everywhere there is craft and technique; everywhere there is artistry and form. Art itself, technique, is ponderous and clumsy, and because of its awkwardness it obstructs that inner element ... — Kazimir Malevich

Painting, like any art, comprises a technique, a workmanlike handling of material, but the accuracy of a tone and the fictitious combination of effects depend entirely on the choice made by the artist. — Paul Cezanne

The art is the challenge which you must meet every day: the technique you should learn to control with time. The science and the art of photography are really one, and not opposed to each other. — Yousuf Karsh

Avoid methodology. If what you're doing is about technique, that's not art. — Kay WalkingStick

Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. — Jackson Pollock

All along I've had an ambivalent relationship to photography - but as to whether I thought it an art form, or a craft, or a technique, well, I've always been taken with Henry Geldzahler's answer to that question when he said, I thought it was a hobby. — David Hockney

Art is awkward until technique has become an unconscious habit. — Austin O'Malley

My very first lessons in the art of telling stories took place in the kitchen ... my mother and three or four of her friends ... told stories ... with effortless art and technique. They were natural-born storytellers in the oral tradition. — Paule Marshall

You cannot reconcile creativeness with technical achievement. You may be perfect in playing the piano, and not be creative. You may be able to handle color, to put paint on canvas most cleverly, and not be a creative painter ... having lost the song, we pursue the singer. We learn from the singer the technique of song, but there is no song; and I say the song is essential, the joy of singing is essential. When the joy is there, the technique can be built up from nothing; you will invent your own technique, you won't have to study elocution or style. When you have, you see, and the very seeing of beauty is an art. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Dialectics, as a veteran communist explained ... 'is the art and technique of always landing on your feet. — Tony Judt

Life, raw life, the kind we lead every day, whether it leads us into the past or the future, has the curious property of not seeming real enough. We have a need, however illusive, for a life that is more real than life. It lies in the imagination. Fiction would seem to be the way it is processed into reality. If this were not so we should have little excuse for art. Life, raw life, would be more than satisfactory in itself. But it seems to be the nature of man to transform - himself, if possible, and then the world around him - and the technique of this transformation is what we call art. — Wright Morris

Art is technique: a means by which to materialize the invisible realm of the mind. — Hiroshi Sugimoto

The techniques should not be practised simply so they can be performed in the kata. Since karate is a fighting art each technique and movement has its own meaning. The karateka must consider their meaning, how and why they are effective, and practise accordingly — Shigeru Egami

Always assume that your opponent is going to be bigger, stronger and faster than you; so that you learn to rely on technique, timing and leverage rather than brute strength — Helio Gracie

Look to the Classics, History, to the Arts, for there is truth. Look away from the systems, the processes, the techniques. — Charles Guggenheim

Those who desire only techniques will never understand this art. It is everything beyond that — Masaaki Hatsumi

Play is the taproot from which original art springs. It is the raw stuff that the artist channels with all his learning and technique. — Stephen Nachmanovitch

When you really get technique ... there is no strength that will stop you. — Caio Terra

The smudging makes the paintings a bit more complete. When they're not blurred, so many details seem wrong, and the whole thing is wrong too. Then smudging can help make the painting invincible, surreal, more enigmatic - that's how easy it is. — Gerhard Richter

Making art was really about the problem of the soul, of losing it. It was a technique for inhabiting the world. For not dissolving into it. — Rachel Kushner

Pre-Raphaelites they called themselves; not that they imitated the early Italian masters at all, but that in their work, as opposed to the facile abstractions of Raphael, they found a stronger realism of imagination, a more careful realism of technique, a vision at once more fervent and more vivid, an individuality more intimate and more intense. For it is not enough that a work of art should conform to the aesthetic demands of its age: there must be also about it, if it is to affect us with any permanent delight, the impress of a distinct individuality, an individuality remote from that of ordinary men, and coming near to us only by virtue of a certain newness and wonder in the work, and through channels whose very strangeness makes us more ready to give them welcome. — Oscar Wilde

In love as in art, good technique helps. — Mason Cooley

Those who rush are the same ones who lack technique. — Ryron Gracie

Remember ... you are expressing the technique, not doing the technique. — Bruce Lee

THE TECHNIQUES OF the Art of Peace are neither fast nor slow, nor are they inside or outside.. They transcend time and space. — Morihei Ueshiba

Perhaps the most extraordinary characteristic of current America is the attempt to reduce life to buying and selling. Life is not love unless love is sex and bought and sold. Life is not knowledge save knowledge of technique, of science for destruction. Life is not beauty except beauty for sale. Life is not art unless its price is high and it is sold for profit. All life is production for profit, and for what is profit but for buying and selling again? — W.E.B. Du Bois

Being satisfied: this is the general model of being and living whose promoters and supporters do not appreciate the fact that it generates discontent. For the quest for satisfaction and the fact of being satisfied presuppose the fragmentation of 'being' into activities, intentions, needs, all of them well-defined, isolated, separable and separated from the Whole. Is this an art of living? A style? No. It is merely the result and the application to daily life of a management technique and a positive knowledge directed by market research. The economic prevails even in a domain that seemed to elude it: it governs lived experience. — Henri Lefebvre

A Work of Art ... is not a living thing ... that walks or runs.But the making of a life.That which gives you a reaction.To some it is the wonder of Man's Fingers.To some it is the wonder of the Mind.To some it is the wonder of Technique.And to some it is how Real it is.To some, how Transcendent it is.Like the 5th Symphony it presents itself. — Louis Kahn

Art without technique is invertebrate, shapeless, characterless. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Technique should be taught, not as an end in itself, but as something
related to individual expression, as a means toward an end. One cannot
separate technique from expression. There is only expression. — Kimon Nicolaides

Challenge, the way anything that came under discussion could be claimed or rejected by either side. Time and time again the power of an idea or a piece of art was assessed by either its beauty or its technique or its usefulness, and time and time again my wife was surprised by how rarely anything on earth satisfies all three camps. He — Helen Oyeyemi

You have no finesse," a gambler at the Silver Garter once said to him. "No technique."
"Sure I do," Kaz had responded. "I practice the art of 'pull his shirt over his head and punch till you see blood. — Leigh Bardugo

It's easier and sociabler to talk technique than it is to make art. — John Barth

He found himself weeping.
Not for the future or for the emperor. These were the tears of a man who saw before himself a masterpiece. True art was more than beauty; it was more than technique. It was not just imitation.
It was boldness, it was contrast, it was subtlety. — Brandon Sanderson

The requirements of the theatre are very great
a strong constitution, energy and unflagging purpose, charm of feature, these alone do not necessarily mean anything, and they must not be relied upon as assurances of an easy conquest of the public heart. It is not only a question of fitness for the work, but of long years of most diligent effort to master the technique of the theatre, and to develop whatever of the art instinct we may possess upon the simplest, broadest, and most human lines. — Julia Marlowe

Techniques vary, art stays the same; it is a transposition of nature at once forceful and sensitive. — Claude Monet

Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art. — Paul Valery

The novel is perhaps the highest art form because it so closely resembles life: it is about human relationships. It's technique, page by page, resembles our technique of living day by day
a way of relating. — Joyce Carol Oates

In every [other] pursuit men without natural aptitude succeed by obstinate study of technique, but who is not a poet by nature can never become one by art. — Giambattista Vico

This could be your big ticket," he said. "You know what happens to you at art school?"
I shook my head.
"All that good natural technique you have? All that detail? They'll beat it right out of you. They'll be so threatened by it, they'll make you start throwing paint at the canvas like a monkey. By the time you graduate, the only thing you'll be able to do is teach art to high school kids."
Okay, I thought. I'm glad he's excited for me.
"On the plus side, you'll probably get laid a lot."
I gave him a nod and a quick thumbs-up. He patted me on the shoulder and then left me alone. — Steve Hamilton

The subtle working of ki is the maternal source that affects changes in breath. It is also the source of martial art as love. When one unifies mind and body by virtue of ki and manifests ai-ki (harmony of ki), delicate changes in breath-power occur spontaneously and "waza" (proper technique) flows freely. — Kisshomaru Ueshiba

In order to make the novel into a polyhistorical illumination of existence, you need to master the technique of ellipsis, the art of condensation. Otherwise, you fall into the trap of endless length. — Milan Kundera

What moves me about ... what's called technique ... is that it comes from some mysterious deep place. I mean it can have something to do with the paper and the developer and all that stuff, but it comes mostly from some very deep choices somebody has made that take a long time and keep haunting them. — Diane Arbus

The art of love is like your painting, it requires technique, patience, and above all, practice by the couple. It requires boldness, the courage to go beyond what people conventionally call making love. — Paulo Coelho

I like druggy downtown kids who spray paint walls and trains. I like their lack of training, their primitive technique. I think it hurts you, when you stay too long in school. — Lou Reed

As an artist you have to find something that deeply interests you. It's not enough to make art that is about art, to look at Matisse and Picasso and say, how can I paint like them? You have to be obsessed by something that can't come out in any other way, then the other things - the skill and technique - will follow. — Anselm Kiefer

To me the most important thing in a piece of art is the thought. Technique is totally secondary. — Robert Bateman

Many musicians are fabulously skilled at playing the black dots on the printed page, but mystified by how the dots got there in the first place and apprehensive of playing without dots. Music theory does not help here; it teaches rules of the grammar, but not what to say. When people ask me how to improvise, only a little of what I can say is about music. The real story is about spontaneous expression, and it is therefore a spiritual and a psychological story rather than a story about the technique of one art form or another. — Stephen Nachmanovitch

Postural exercises such as yoga, Pilates, Egoscues, Alexander technique and martial arts are about avoiding pain and injury as much as helping you feel good. Attractive men and women have good posture. — Liz Miller

If you don't care about losing, you will focus on technique. — Caio Terra

I loved Art Tatum! And, through him, and other different jazz musicians, I actually found my technique. — Tony Bennett

Any good photograph is a successful synthesis of technique and art. — Andreas Feininger

I don't have technique because I never learnt any. — Emma Thompson

Good technique includes quick changes, great variety and speed. It may be a system of reversals much like a concept of God and the Devil. In the speed of events, which one is really in charge? ... to put the heart of martial arts inyour own heart and have it be a part of you means total comprehension and the use of a free style. When you have that you will know that there are no limits. — Bruce Lee

TV was entertainment of the last resort. There was nothing on during the day in the summer other than game shows and soap operas. Besides, a TV-watching child was considered available for chores: take out the trash, clean your room, pick up that mess, fold those towels, mow the lawn ... the list was endless. We all became adept at chore-avoidance. Staying out of sight was a reliable strategy. Drawing or painting was another: to my mother, making art trumped making beds. A third choir-avoidance technique was to read. A kid with his or her nose in a book is a kid who is not fighting, yelling, throwing, breaking things, bleeding, whining, or otherwise creating a Mom-size headache. Reading a book was almost like being invisible - a good thing for all concerned. — Pete Hautman

Arabelle was so upset, it was clear that she was not filled with the thrill of discovery. She was instead several steps over the edge into hysteria, and talking to hysterical people, like so much of ordinary human interaction, takes no particular empathy or liking for people, happily for Dark and Dismal Dexter. It was all technique, a craft and not an art, and that put it squarely inside the expertise of anyone who has studied and copied human behavior. Smile in the right places, nod your head, pretend to listen - I had mastered it ages ago. — Jeff Lindsay

Hockey is an art. It requires speed, precision, and strength like other sports, but it also demands an extraordinary intelligence to develop a logical sequence of movements, a technique which is smooth, graceful and in rhythm with the rest of the game. — Jacques Plante

The best painters, as they progress in reputation and towards perfection, are found to dispense more and more with the technique of the art, for simpler methods. Simplicity never fails to charm. — Honore De Balzac

Ill-informed intuition is fantastic - it's what great art is. So really old painters or writers or actors are brilliant, because they've finally reached the point when they can let go of al technique. — Helen Mirren

Everybody who cares for his art seeks the essence of his own technique. — Dziga Vertov

By ... our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim; by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing ... we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The art of manipulating public opinion, which is a necessary art for the democratic politician, and, like other arts, is sometimespractised with greater virtuosity by knaves than by honest men (who are apt to disdain it), has a different technique in different countries. For instance, in England we excel in whitewashing: in America they excel in tarring and feathering. We strain our nerves and stretch our consciences to avoid a scandal: Americans do the same to make one. — George Bernard Shaw

Technique! The very word is like a shriek of outraged Art. It is the idiot name given to effort by those who are too weak, too weary, or too dull to play the game. The mighty have no theory of technique. — Leonard Bacon

I think her favorite thing about our ... collaboration was her actor and musician friends rubbing shoulders with my academic colleagues, she liked the atmosphere of challenge, the way anything that came under discussion could be claimed or rejected by either side. Time and time again the power of an idea or a piece of art was assessed by either its beauty or its technique or its usefulness, and time and time again my wife was surprised by how rarely anything on earth satisfies all three camps. — Helen Oyeyemi

Art is a technique of communication. The image is the most complete technique of all communication. — Claes Oldenburg

It is a temptation to exploit one's technique because an audience is easily reached this way, but they cannot be moved by technique alone and to move an audience is the role of dance as an art. — Alla Osipenko

In the abstract art of cooking,
ingredients trump appliances,
passion supersedes expertise,
creativity triumphs over technique,
spontaneity inspires invention,
and wine makes even the worst culinary disaster taste delicious. — Bob Blumer