Robert Henri Quotes

All outward success when it has value is but the inevitable result of an inward success of full living full play and enjoyment of one's faculties.
Robert Henri
Cherish your emotions and never undervalue them.
Robert Henri
It takes great wit and interest and energy to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.
Robert Henri
The pursuit of happiness ... is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.
Robert Henri
Do whatever you do intensely.
Robert Henri
There is weakness in pretending to know more than you know or in stating less than you know.
Robert Henri
Cherish your own emotions and never under-value them. We are not here to do what has already been done.
Robert Henri
Some one has defined a work of art as a “thing beautifully done.” I like it better if we cut away the adverb and preserve the word “done,” and let it stand alone in its fullest meaning. Things are not done beautifully. The beauty is an integral part of their being done.
Robert Henri
The brain can be a wonderful tool, can be a willing slave, as has been evidenced by some men, but of course it works poorly when it has not the habit of usage. An automobile can become a source of delight, but the first time you drive you are as apt to go up a tree as to go up the road.
Robert Henri
If we are cultivating fruit in an orchard, we wish that particular fruit to grow in its own way; we give it the soil it needs, the amount of moisture, the amount of care, but we do not treat the apple tree as we would the pear tree or the peach tree as we would the vineyard on the hillside. Each is allowed the freedom of its own kind and the result is the perfection of growth which can be accomplished in no other way. The time must come when the same freedom is allowed the individual; each in his own way must develop according to nature's purpose, the body must be but the channel for the expression of purpose, interest, emotion, labor. Everywhere freedom must be the sign of reason.
Robert Henri
What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of this business of making a picture.
Robert Henri
When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.
Robert Henri
A work of art is the trace of a magnificent struggle.
Robert Henri
Houses, housetops, like human beings have wonderful character. The lives of housetops. The wear of the seasons. The country is beautiful, young, growing things. The majesty of trees. The backs of tenement houses are living documents.
Robert Henri
Sometimes we do grip the concert in a human head, and so hold it that in a way we get a record of it into paint, but the vision and expressing of one day will not do for the next.
Robert Henri
Be game--take a chance--don't hide behind veils and veils of discretion... Go forward with what you have to say, expressing things as you see them. You are new evidence, fresh and young. Your work, the spirit of youth, you are the progress of human evolution. If age dulls you it will be time enough then to be ponderous and heavy--or quit. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to be young, to continue growing--not to settle and accept.
Robert Henri
All my life I have refused to be for or against parties, for or against nations, for or against people. I never seek novelty or the eccentric; I do not go from land to land to contrast civilizations. I seek only, wherever I go, for symbols of greatness, and as I have already said, they may be found in the eyes of a child, in the movement of a gladiator, in the heart of a gypsy, in twilight in Ireland or in moonrise over the deserts. To hold the spirit of greatness is in my mind what the world was created for. The human body is beautiful as this spirit shines through, and art is great as it translates and embodies this spirit.
Robert Henri
We read books. They make us think. It matters very little whether we agree with the books or not.
Robert Henri
There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.
Robert Henri
You pass people on the street, some are for you, some are not.
Robert Henri
An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.
Robert Henri
I have no sympathy with the belief that art is the restricted province of those who paint, sculpt, make music and verse. I hope we will come to an understanding that the material used is only incidental, that there is artist in every man; and that to him the possibility of development and of expression and the happiness of creation is as much a right and as much a duty to himself, as to any of those who work in the especially ticketed ways.
Robert Henri
The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation.
Robert Henri
In every human being there is the artist, and whatever his activity, he has an equal chance with any to express the result of his growth and his contact with life. I don't believe any real artist cares whether what he does is 'art' or not. Who, after all, knows what art is?
Robert Henri
We are troubled by having two selves, the inner and the outer. The outer one is rather dull and lets great things go by.
Robert Henri
The work of the art student is no light matter. Few have the courage and stamina to see it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways. We like sympathy and we like to be in company. It is easier than going it alone. But alone one gets acquainted with himself, grows up and on, not stopping with the crowd. It costs to do this. If you succeed somewhat you may have to pay for it as well as enjoy it all your life.
Robert Henri
Concentrate on a single feature – as, build all toward one eye – make all lines lead toward that eye. (Robert Henri)
Robert Henri
Lines are results, do not draw them for themselves. ... Lines give birth to lines. Drawing is not following a line on the model, it is drawing your sense of the thing. ... Make a drawing flow, stopping sometimes, and going on. ... Search for the simple constructive forces, line the lines of a suspension bridge. Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out. ... Have purpose in the places where lines stop.
Robert Henri
Art tends toward balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in.
Robert Henri
Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out.
Robert Henri
The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook.
Robert Henri
If a certain activity, such as painting, becomes the habitual mode of expression, it may follow that taking up the painting materials and beginning work with them will act suggestively and so presently evoke a flight into the higher state.
Robert Henri
Because we are saturated with life, because we are human, our strongest motive is life, humanity; and the stronger the motive back of the line the stronger, and therefore more beautiful, the line will be.
Robert Henri
Art is the giving by each man of his evidence to the world. Those who wish to give, love to give, discover the pleasure of giving. Those who give are tremendously strong.
Robert Henri
Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. A worker or painter should enjoy his work, else the observer will not enjoy it.
Robert Henri
A Curve does not exist in its full power until contrasted with a straight line.
Robert Henri
A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods.
Robert Henri
A common defect of modern art study is that too many students do not know why they draw.
Robert Henri
Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.
Robert Henri
There is no art without contemplation.
Robert Henri
Color is only beautiful when it means something.
Robert Henri
All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.
Robert Henri
Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness.
Robert Henri
Don't worry about your originality. You couldn't get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do.
Robert Henri
The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
Robert Henri
Do whatever you do intensely.
Robert Henri