The 80 best phrases of Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso (born Pablo Ruiz Picasso, 1881 - 1973) was a brilliant Spanish painter and sculptor, born in Malaga, creator and representative of Cubism.
He considered himself a communist and was a tireless worker of art, to the point of being recognized internationally as one of the most influential painters of the entire 20th century.
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Picasso phrases (and famous quotes)
From a family of artists, Pablo Picasso developed from an early age a special sense for art and painting. During his life he went through several stages in which he developed completely different styles, until he reached Cubism, which was his hallmark.
In today's article we are going to learn about Pablo Picasso's best quotes and several of the most representative famous quotes from him.
1. Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror or the painter?
A phrase that shows us a certain subjectivism when it comes to focusing on an artistic creation, or simply when it comes to visualizing reality.
2. When we love a woman we do not begin to measure her limbs.
Love is much more than a question of proportions.
3. We must not discriminate between things. As far as things are concerned, there are no class distinctions. We must choose what is good for us where we can find it.
Choose positive, but do not discriminate.
4. When German soldiers used to come to my studio and look at my photos of Guernica, they would ask 'Did you do this?' And I'd say, 'No, you did it.'
Picasso only captured it on canvas.
5. Critics, mathematicians, scientists and meddles want to classify everything, marking borders and limits... In art, there is room for all possibilities.
The open mind does not understand labels or limits.
6. What is really a face? Your own photo of him? Her makeup on him? Or is it a face painted by a painter or by another painter?… Doesn't everyone look at themselves in their own particular way? Warps just don't exist.
Another proof of the subjectivism that moved the work of Pablo Ruiz Picasso.
7. Art is a finger on the ass of the bourgeoisie.
Always emphasizing the privileges of the well-being classes.
8. To flourish, a work of art must ignore or rather forget all the rules.
Reinventing yourself is starting from scratch, without bias nor apriorisms.
9. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, but the application of what instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon.
A phrase that sums up his creative mindset.
10. The manifestation takes place from the Spirit. It does not take place from the form, from the physical world. Know that what you want to manifest will happen.
On the expressive nature.
11. Finishing a job?... how absurd, finishing means killing him, freeing him from his soul... giving him the coup de grace for the painter and for the painting.
Everything is in constant construction. Art does not understand anything else.
12. Having fun with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous… I am just a public artist who has understood his time.
A very interesting self-description.
13. Photographers, along with dentists, are the two professions that are never satisfied with what they do. Every dentist would like to be a doctor and within every photographer there is a painter who tries to get out.
Cool reflection that may not please dentists and photographers ...
14. I don't believe in accidents. There are no encounters in history, there are no accidents.
Everything has a reason.
15. Often when reading a book one feels that the author would have preferred to paint rather than write; one can feel the pleasure that comes from describing a landscape or a person, as if one were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors.
A parallel between literature and painting.
16. What is most abstract may be the height of reality.
Paradoxical thought of the great Pablo Picasso.
17. When it comes down to it, all you have is your being. Your being is a sun with a thousand rays.
A way to express the necessary love towards oneself.
18. If I spit, they'll take my spit and frame it like a great work of art.
Aware of its popularity.
19. Matisse makes a drawing, then makes a copy of it. He copies it again five times, ten times, always clarifying the line. He is convinced that the last, the most deprived, is the best, the purest, the definitive; and in fact, most of the time, it was the first. In the draw, nothing is better than the first try.
Great reflection on art, from the hand of another great painter.
20. Our goals can only be achieved through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and on which we must act vigorously. There is no other route to success.
A motivating phrase like few others.
21. There is nothing more difficult than a line.
A paradox based on designs.
22. You do a complete painting for a peach and people think otherwise, that that particular peach is just a detail.
The ironies of the interpretation of art.
23. People who talk about beautiful things scare me. What is beautiful? Something that escapes definitions.
24. Youth has no age.
It is beyond the numbers.
25. Paradise is loving many things with passion.
Another of the aphorisms of this great Spanish painter.
26. Nature does many things the way I do them, but she hides them!
Curious reflection on the designs of nature.
27. Is there anything more dangerous than empathic understanding?
Connecting with someone has its risks.
28. An idea is a starting point and nothing more. As soon as you make it, the thought transforms it.
It is a point from which the first lines are drawn.
29. When you start to paint a portrait and look for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you inevitably arrive at the egg. Similarly, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes the portrait.
An observation on the creative process of painting.
30. Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working
Luck does not exist as something isolated; work encourages its appearance.
31. Never let a dichotomy rule your life, a dichotomy where you hate what you do so you can enjoy your free time. Find a situation in which your work brings you as much happiness as your free time.
Another of Picasso's phrases that have to do with our way of living life.
32. Everything exists in limited quantity, especially happiness.
Aphorism about what makes us happy.
33. Your work in life is your ultimate seduction.
A maxim of life that invites reflection.
34. Drawing is a kind of hypnotism.
It has a lot to do with suggestion.
35. I, who have been involved with all styles of painting, can assure you that the only things that fluctuate are the waves of fashion that carry snobs and profiteers; the number of true connoisseurs remains more or less the same.
There is a crust around art that has little to do with its essence, according to Picasso.
36. Art is never chaste. It should be forbidden for the innocent ignorant, they should never be allowed contact with those who are not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. If art is chaste, it is not art.
It must have an experiential component.
37. Anything new, anything worth doing, cannot be recognized.
The authentic is rarely digestible by the general public.
38. Why suppose that looking is seeing?
It may be something more related to emotions than to sensory information.
39. People who read are people who dream.
Knowing about other worlds leads us to fantasize.
40. Music and art are the lights that guide the world.
Two ways to move humanity.
41. Museums are just a lot of lies.
Nothing exists protected behind a showcase.
42. We constantly move dust from one place to another, only to have it replaced by more dust - entropy always wins.
Chaos is the norm, not the exception.
43. When I was a child I drew like Michelangelo. It took me years to learn to draw as a child.
Being creative implies unlearning.
44. If we could take out our brains and use only our eyes ...
A way of perceiving without rationalizing.
45. To draw, you must close your eyes and sing.
A way to get away from what surrounds us.
46. What could be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. Perhaps that child will one day become a true painter, or even a great painter. But then you will have to start all over again, from scratch.
About children's creativity.
47. Unless your job causes you problems, it is useless.
What has value is disruptive.
48. Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make about his painting.
A cross between artistic modalities.
49. Imagination is real.
What we can imagine is part of what exists.
50. Copying others is necessary, but copying yourself is pathetic.
Pretending to repeat yourself to create a personal brand is a way of self-limiting.
51. In art, intentions are not enough and, as we say in Spanish, love must be demonstrated by facts and not by reasons. What you do is what counts and not what you intended to do.
What matters is the product of the action.
52. What I find horrible today is that people are always trying to find personality for themselves. Nobody cares about what we might call the ideal of a painter.
What makes us unique is not only reflected in our decisions.
53. Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in the bathroom like a sugar cube.
The reality is full of extraordinary facts.
54. Now there is fame. Of all evils: hunger, misery, public misunderstanding; fame is by far the worst. It is God's punishment for the artist. It's sad. It's true.
It can be a curse.
55. I don't want to be modern. I want to be eternal.
The desire to transcend, a very typical characteristic of artists.
56. A piece of space dust falls on your head every day... With each breath, we inhale a little of the history of our universe, the past and future of our planet, the smells and stories of the world around us, even the seeds of lifetime.
Our world is not limited to what we see.
57. I would like to live as a poor man with a lot of money.
An apparent contradiction based on humility.
58. God is really just another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He doesn't have a real style, he just keeps trying other things.
In nature there is a great variety of designs.
59. A plagiarist is someone who steals from a person. A true artist steals from everyone.
Art is not about having totally original ideas.
60. The Parthenon is actually a corral on which someone built a roof; and they were adding columns and sculptures because there were people in Athens who were working and wanted to express themselves.
Art as an improvised process.
61. When art critics get together, they talk about Form, Structure and Meaning. When the artists get together, they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.
A reflection full of humor.
62. The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about. The more technique there is, the less there is.
The technique is like a rail that limits our movements.
63. You have to know how to be vulgar. Paint with four letter words.
With the most rudimentary tools you can create wonders.
64. Why are you trying to understand art? Are you trying to understand the song of a bird?
By its nature, art is beyond reason.
65. Art is not true.
Mere representation of the real.
66. My hand tells me what I'm thinking.
The flow of thoughts towards the hand... or the other way around?
67. Nobody pays attention if one always says the same things, with the same words and the same tone of voice.
You need to hit the table to be heard.
68. I understand how people see things in the roots of trees, in a crack in a wall, in an eroded stone. But in marble? It comes in blocks and does not conjure up any images. It does not inspire anything.
Your opinion on this material so widely used in construction.
69. Painting is a profession of a blind man. The painter does not paint what he sees, but what he feels.
A task full of introspection.
70. Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
The process of asking questions is, for this artist, the most interesting.
71. I do not search. Meeting.
Any situation entails fascinating discoveries.
72. The purpose of art is to wash the dust of everyday life from our souls.
A practice that takes us beyond the everyday.
73. Painting is just another way to keep a journal.
In the art of painting part of one's own identity and personal history is reflected.
74. Colors, with their characteristics, follow the changes of emotions.
We cannot value colors without their emotional component.
75. The artist is a receptacle of emotions that come from everywhere: from heaven, from earth, from a piece of paper, from a passing form, from a spider's web.
An original way of understanding the creative task of the artist.
76. You don't make art, you find it.
Art comes to you. Great famous quote from Picasso.
77. Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.
A matter of prioritizing items.
78. Love is the best snack in life.
Whoever feels loved is capable of prolonging his life.
79. All art is erotic.
The beauty embodied in Picasso's paintings is a good example of this.
80. I paint objects as I think of them, not as I see them.
Art is reinterpreting, never copying.