Robert Henri Quotes

The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.

~ Robert Henri

All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.

~ 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

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

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

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

The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation.

~ 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

We will be happy if we can get around to the idea that art is not an outside and extra thing, that it is a natural outcome of a state of being, that the state of being is the important thing, that a man can be a carpenter and be a great man.

~ Robert Henri

An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.

~ Robert Henri

You pass people on the street, some are for you, some are not.

~ Robert Henri

There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.

~ Robert Henri

We read books. They make us think. It matters very little whether we agree with the books or not.

~ 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

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

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

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

A work of art is the trace of a magnificent struggle.

~ 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

What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of this business of making a picture.

~ 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

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

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

There is weakness in pretending to know more than you know or in stating less than you know.

~ Robert Henri

Good composition is like a suspension bridge - each line adds strength and takes none away.

~ Robert Henri

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.

~ Robert Henri