Brancusi Quotes & Sayings

Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them. — Constantin Brancusi

Whoever does not detach himself from the ego never attains the Absolute and never deciphers life. — Constantin Brancusi

I want just the flash of its spirit. — Constantin Brancusi

In art, one does not aim for simplicity; one achieves it unintentionally as one gets closer to the real meaning of things. — Constantin Brancusi

Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave. — Constantin Brancusi

Don't look for obscure formulas or mystery in my work. It is pure joy that I offer you. Look at my sculptures until you see them. Those closest to God have seen them. — Constantin Brancusi

Simplicity is not an objective in art, but one achieves simplicity despite one's self by entering into the real sense of things. — Constantin Brancusi

When we are no longer children we are already dead — Constantin Brancusi

There hasn't been any art yet. Art is just beginning. — Constantin Brancusi

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible. — Constantin Brancusi

Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree. — Constantin Brancusi

What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things ... it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface. — Constantin Brancusi

Work like a slave; command like a king; create like a god. — Constantin Brancusi

Work like a slave; order like a king; create like a god. — Constantin Brancusi

If I'm taking a picture of Brancusi's grave, I know that there's something of him, of his mortal remains, beneath my feet, and there's something beautiful about that. — Patti Smith

Brancusi has his medium: Picasso, Faulkner, Shostakovich, theirs. Mine happens to be cloth. — Charles James

Then they began saying, "Get hold of him. Put him in Mercury." Now as you know I have two sculptures by Brancusi and several pretty things and I did not want them to start getting rough, so I said, pacifically, "Dear sweet clodhoppers, if you knew anything of sexual psychology you would know that nothing could give me keener pleasure than to be manhandled by you meaty boys. It would be an ecstasy of the very naughtiest kind. So if any of you wishes to be my partner in joy come and seize me. If, on the other hand, you simply wish to satisfy some obscure and less easily classified libido and see me bathe, come with me quietly, dear louts, to the fountain. — Evelyn Waugh

Why talk about sculpture when I can photograph it? — Constantin Brancusi

When you see a fish you don't think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water. Well, I've tried to express just that. If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirits. — Constantin Brancusi

Brancusi made me realise that what I had learned previously - the quick ways of doing things - was all wrong. It is a search you have to enter - into yourself. — Isamu Noguchi

Why write [about my art]? Why not just show the photographs? — Constantin Brancusi

Simplicity is complexity resolved — Constantin Brancusi

Since childhood, it was my dream to go where all the poets and artists had been. Rimbaud, Artaud, Brancusi, Camus, Picasso, Bresson, Goddard, Jeanne Moreau, Juliette Greco, everybody - Paris for me was a Mecca. — Patti Smith

The work of art expresses precisely those things which do not die. It must do so, however, in a form that bears witness to the artist's own era. — Constantin Brancusi

Theories are patterns without value. What counts is action. — Constantin Brancusi

Architecture is inhabited sculpture. — Constantin Brancusi

To see far is one thing, going there is another. — Constantin Brancusi

I ground matter to find the continuous line. And when I realized I could not find it, I stopped, as if an unseen someone had slapped my hands. — Constantin Brancusi

I refused [to study under Rodin] because nothing grows under large trees. — Constantin Brancusi

They are imbeciles who call my work abstract. That which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior but the idea, the essence of things. — Constantin Brancusi

Nothing can grow under big trees. — Constantin Brancusi

I do not aspire to be in fashion. For what is in fashion, goes out of fashion
If, on the contrary, your work is contested today, it doesn't matter.
For when it is finally understood, it will be for eternity. — Constantin Brancusi