The 100 best phrases of César Manrique
Sculptor, painter and plastic artist of Spanish origin, César Manrique was a milestone in the world of fine arts, but his greatest contribution was with the call of conscience to the protection and environmental conservation, being recognized for it with the World Prize for Ecology and Tourism and the Prize Europe.
In this article we will review Cesar Manrique's best phrases, those that express their way of understanding life, nature and art.
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César Manrique's most memorable phrases
Below we bring a compilation with the best phrases of César Manrique, an artist who worked to show that art and the environment can coexist as one.
1. We have to collect and learn from our own environment.
A call to be one with the environment, instead of attacking it.
2. My joy of living and continuously creating has given me having studied, contemplated and loved the great wisdom of nature.
Art has led him to appreciate nature.
3. Given the spectacular presence of the systematic destruction and deterioration of our planet, due to that excessive desire for power and wealth.
Unfortunately, the attacks on Mother Earth are due to human ambition.
4. I want to extract from the Earth its harmony to unite it to my feeling with art.
The only extraction that should be allowed.
5. We must avoid the destruction of each old wall, of each distribution, of each house where time has left a historical trace. His disappearance would forever erase a past full of meaning and wisdom learned by experience.
All historic structures tell a story of that culture and therefore must be sacred.
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6. Creating with absolute freedom, without fear and without recipes, comforts the soul and opens a path to the joy of living.
For Manrique, creation has no limits.
7. I fight against labels, cultural patterns and all homogeneity.
Social restrictions do not let us be ourselves.
8. We have begun to discover that everything is interconnected and that the excessive occupation of the land ends up destroying nature and, therefore, human beings.
It is time to be aware that nature also needs its space.
9. When traveling, culture is given to us in an easy and natural way, but there is a phenomenon that we have an obligation to spread, which is simply teaching how to see.
Travel teaches us to respect and admire the wonders of the planet.
10. I'm sick of meetings, promises and pedantic words. Movement is demonstrated by walking.
Common empty promises of political speeches.
11. Reaching the goal of utopia is achieving the impossible.
Everyone believes what is impossible for them.
12. The world we inhabit is dark and cold if we do not open the inner eyes of the spirit to the inner flame of nature.
We are lost if we fail to understand the importance of nature in the world.
13. I am not going to give up, either with my works or with my permanent denunciations, the fight for our survival and for the conservation of our environment.
A fight that never gave up.
14. The sum of all the individuals is what will really produce results.
For an environmental change to be effective, we all need to unite.
15. I remember that, as a child, it was like a shame to have been born on this island. Lanzarote was the Cinderella of the Canaries.
At first he had no love for the island that later became his greatest inspiration.
16. We canaries do not know that living here is a luxury.
Many people underestimate the potential of their land.
17. For any living being, the conservation of nature and its perfect balance produces a truly profound teaching, because all the intelligence of the cosmos is immersed in nature.
When we take care of nature we understand where life comes from.
18. It is about living for the future, helping to build a clean, intelligent alternative with quality of life.
A call for new responsible and ecological creations.
19. Art is something much more important, much deeper, so as not to fall into the elementary and poor vulgarity of the increasingly accentuated human ordinariness.
Art is an open door for the human imagination.
20. The biggest business a country can have is the education of its people.
A town should be measured by the quality of education it provides to its people.
21. Faced with the suicidal extermination of our planet, the intervention of artists in defense of the conservation of the environment becomes an urgent issue, of maximum responsibility.
Encouraging art as a means of protest against climate change.
22. I consider myself, and always have been, a free being, who has always broken chains and ties that impoverish the soul and life.
The only way to be free is to leave behind everything that we drag.
23. Art, above all, has to have enormous breadth and great freedom, if you really want to investigate and create.
Art is an infinite space that no one can restrict.
24. We live in such a short space of time on this planet that each one of our steps must be aimed at building more and more of the dream space of utopia.
It is our actions that will change the state of nature in the world.
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25. At the heart of the matter, everything can be moved through a great passion, a great love of a total dedication.
Love is the main engine of good changes.
26. Lanzarote is pure magic… mystery. Clean, insolent and naked beauty. Constant lesson.
Showing his love for Lanzarote.
27. Is it possible to understand such clumsiness and barbarity, that by the mere fact of speculation scams with the sole purpose of that excessive desire for urgent profit, is capable of abolishing forever, and this is the serious thing, the entire future of a country?
Ambitious governments pursue power regardless of the damage they are doing to their people or their lands.
28. I think this is the most important mission of an artist today.
The mission of giving voice to the urgent call of nature.
29. Eternity is a second and a second is eternity.
Time is relative.
30. The important thing about creativity is to shake minds tied to established formulas.
The main purpose of creativity.
31. In the Canary Islands, there are a series of mayors who are fools of the speculation of our culture and style.
Not everyone is capable of promoting good tourism.
32. In Gran Canaria, most of its towns are not whitewashed, giving a third-world impression of poverty and misery that makes you want to vomit.
Showing sadness at the actions of people in the Canary Islands.
33. Any place on earth without a strong tradition, without personality and without enough poetic atmosphere, is doomed to die.
Culture and art are the heart of every nation.
34. The absolute truth does not exist.
Everyone has the truth about him.
35. The direct contact of my skin with the rocks of this bare nature gives me the vigor of the energy of life.
Being in a constant connection with nature.
36. Man, exalted by his excessive pride, has imposed a system of outdated values that have only served to annihilate his own life system.
Pride and consumerism are destroying us.
37. We have, now more than ever, to fight to erase the prevailing everyday vulgarity.
Trying to raise awareness in people.
38. I have repeated ad nauseam the care we should have in urban planning.
Trying to promote green constructions.
39. The only way to compete with New York and Manhattan is a country house that I saw in the town, with a Canarian patio full of poetry and beauty.
Although the great buildings represent a great advance, they are worthless if they take with them the green areas around them.
40. The day I die, when I don't feel like dying, I will have planted a seed.
A goal that he managed to achieve.
41. The most dangerous thing about any trend is to assimilate it as novelty novelty.
Many are carried away by the fashions of the moment.
42. A revenge of proving to myself that I was not wrong with what I thought this wonderful island could be.
His motivation to create his work on Lanzarote.
43. We have worked with absolute dedication, achieving the miracle of the birth of a new aesthetic concept.
Achieving a healthy relationship between art and environmental conservation.
44. The last reason, and I think the one that most influenced my love for Lanzarote, is of a more moral, more social and intimate nature.
A personal motivation.
45. The energy of everything that exists cannot be translated into words, it can only be felt with the senses and that absolute surrender of communion with nature.
Nature needs actions not words.
46. I don't believe in victory. Triumph is measured in Western civilization in millions, it is a materialistic concept.
Discarding all consumerist conception.
47. I was sure that I could apply and introduce art in nature, in the environment in which we live.
A stated goal that led to reality.
48. At night I talk to the stars.
Admiring the beauty of natural settings.
49. It saddens me that in these Islands, after having carried out miracles like the one in Lanzarote, where Nothing was created a utopia, the Government and the authorities have not had enough vision of future.
Disappointed by the actions of the governments for how they have treated Lanzarote.
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50. I believe that my great love, full of truth and fidelity, is found fully in painting and in all the meaning of creativity.
What he loves to do the most in art.
51. Cultural heroes must be proclaimed through the creational experiment.
We must reward more responsible creators.
52. After all, it is the speculators, the murderers of thought, who have led humanity to confusion, disenchantment and the hopelessness of a suicidal future.
Speculators have convinced people to go destroying the world.
53. My fight to save the environment and the style of the island has been fierce.
A fight that never ceased, even after his death.
54. The truly important problem of contemporary art is that artists collaborate closely with the people.
Art as a cultural factor instead of being something commercial.
55. The valid work of an artist must be a testimony of the authenticity of his true personality and of the environment in which he has had to live.
For Manrique, true art is the one that comes from the experiences of the artist.
56. In spite of everything, I have not been able to with the authority and power of the State, which many times, due to its aesthetic incapacity, tarnishes that work.
Although it seems unfair, it is always difficult to beat the system of government.
57. It was necessary to stop and program to promote an intelligent tourism industry and thus put an end to the chaotic speculation that spreads throughout the Canary Islands.
In favor of intelligent and responsible tourism that guarantees nature in the Canary Islands.
58. Death seems wonderful to me, because I don't have the responsibility to continue existing in order to do the most daring and funniest things.
Your thoughts on death.
59. I tried to extend the aesthetic concept to the domains of vital and didactic satisfaction.
Taking art to another space.
60. I don't ask life for anything other than that it allows me to create and paint.
Do what you love to do most.
61. For having known from my earliest years its great humility and poverty, where its people had to emigrate for many years due to lack of rain and means.
Talking about the origin of his commitment to give voice to Lanzarote.
62. Expanding the borders of art, integrating it in all its facets in a totalizing symbiosis that is defined as life-man-art.
Creating a relationship between people and nature through art.
63. Unfortunately, I believe that the intelligence and character of the masses are incomparably inferior to the intelligence and character of the few who investigate and discover positive values for the humanity.
Many are carried away by comforts instead of acting for the benefit of nature.
64. You have to fight as long as you live, to leave a trace that justifies your existence.
Motivating people to follow their own struggles.
65. I want them to get psyched up so they can restore their typical houses and be able to say Come on!, people from Tenerife, so that they can see love, style, category and order in La Guancha.
Trying to encourage people to preserve and restore their old houses.
66. The myopia of the rulers and the desire for wealth of the speculators is inevitably collapsing the future.
It is the ambition of power that is destroying the future of the environment.
67. Face with clarity and quality an education that enriches men through culture and art.
Art is necessary for the education of people.
68. All the influence of this scenario that has surrounded my childhood has been manifested successively in all my art, with great freedom of expression, like the same brutal surface of the island.
His art is an extension of his childhood experiences.
69. Being born in this burned geology of ashes, in the middle of the Atlantic, conditions any moderately sensitive being.
Explaining his love for the conservation of the Canary Islands.
70. By prophecy of destiny, the miracle of utopia was achieved on the island of Lanzarote.
A Utopia that needs to be preserved.
71. The best thing is to make life an investigation as a game, before something as unknown and fascinating as existence itself
Have a life full of curiosities and adventures.
72. Where have we canaries come to not value what we have?
A reflection on the heritage of the archipelago from which this artist originated.
73. A canary that, being able, does not paint his house is an anti-canary. And then there is a series of patriotic songs that speak of the Canary Islands as a virgin paradise... Lie!
An unspoiled paradise that has been disgraced by modernism.
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74. Make them think without prejudice, with the logic of a greater vision of the world, capturing the incomprehensible testimonial vibrations of everything that surrounds us.
A way of teaching and making art.
75. Anyway, I think, the time has come to start living utopia.
The utopia is in the recreation of more natural paradises.
76. It depresses me to think that they catalog me. I want to be out of that poor feeling, to do what I think is more positive, educational and cultural.
Nobody wants to be cataloged in only one thing.
77. You are witnessing so much disaster, so much degradation, so much contamination, that if you don't really feel part of the barbarism of which he is witnessing, to defend the stability of life in all its orders, is that art does not interested.
For Manrique, it is impossible to be an artist and not feel bad about the dire changes to the environment.
78. A people without education is doomed to ruin.
It is a town that cannot advance.
79. Let's build it together: it's the only way to make it possible.
The only way to bring life back to the environment.
80. Since it is time to cross the borders and expand the ambiguous limits of art.
Take art to unsuspected levels, without restrictions.
81. With intelligent programming and a clear awareness of what you want, a future opens up full of possibilities as immense as you can ever imagine.
Each one must program his life according to his passion.
82. The future of art is glimpsed in the total creation.
What represents the future of art.
83. It is about making the tourist industry coexist with the defense of the territory and its own culture. And that coexistence is possible, but, above all, necessary, obligatory so as not to live with our backs to the future.
Tourism should focus on preserving and promoting the culture of a people.
84. I have been amazed by La Guancha's love for her environment.
We can always learn from someone else.
85. We could be the paradise of Europe and the only thing that has been done is to try to make money in the short term by destroying the future.
Speaking of the loss of the tourist potential of the Canary Islands.
86. The secret law of human destiny, as a state superior to the rest of the species, lies and points towards a path of spiritual sensitivity.
The most relevant evolution of people is to feed their spirit.
87. When a large majority of the population is aware of the fragility and balance of the whole, we will be able to reverse the destruction that we have set in motion.
But for this it is necessary to awaken ecological sensitivity in people.
88. Utopia can be a reality when the soul manifests itself by throwing itself with record-breaking enthusiasm to achieve that singularity of creation.
The way we managed to make a utopia.
89. This has been the fundamental reason that has reinforced the personality of Lanzarote.
Promote care for the environment through their art.
90. Man has an infinite capacity for adaptation and information, so that he can feel the enormous I enjoy analysis in all things and not spend my life looking without realizing it because I don't know watch.
That is why it is necessary to feed that natural spirit of curiosity and learning.
91. Lanzarote could be the island for meditation, and I could talk a lot about this, but I don't want to be classified as crazy and utopian idealist.
The potential that Lanzarote has.
92. An incredible landscape that determined a result of ways of doing, that cannot be improvised in a short space of time.
A natural paradise par excellence.
93. We are in a position to intuit, through that hidden mystery of instinct, the catastrophe of everything that could happen, if we do not fight by contributing the effort of each one.
We must use our creative ability to solve environmental problems.
94. We don't have to copy anyone. Let them come and copy us.
Trying to be an example of environmental conservation.
95. We must not give up, we must move forward, be vigilant and keep critical awareness alive, because the future is never achieved, we have to do it from the present.
The struggles are not always pleasant, but if we stay motivated we can conquer any goal.
96. Without cultural preparation it is impossible to have a clear vision of the future to plan something that benefits us all. Only in this way will everything be destroyed without perspective.
Culture is part of the soul of any nation.
97. Serve you, the guancheros, as an example for other towns, especially for that South of Tenerife that is garbage, with ridiculous skyscrapers that are not leaving a trace of our culture.
The guancheros as examples of environmental conservation.
98. In any case, when a being is not capable of loving, of creative fulfillment, he is in the hands of destruction.
Those who do not appreciate love cannot appreciate human characteristics.
99. Applying his talent and his art in all the possible applications of his life, to create more culture in the people, the foundation of the evolution of a country.
Art for the benefit of promoting the culture of a people.
100. The unknown and profound nature of him is aware of the great spectacle he offers.
The mystery that prevails in Lanzarote.