I couldn’t give you something mediocre even if that’s all you asked for.
No great work of art is ever finished.
It is not sufficient merely to be a great master in painting and very wise, but I think that it is necessary for the painter to be very moral in his mode of life, or even, if such were possible, a saint, so that the Holy Spirit may inspire his intellect.
No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.
The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor’s hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone.
I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin, charging them to remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ.
The art of creation lies in the gift of perceiving the particular and generalizing it, thus creating the particular again. It is therefore a powerful transforming force and a generator of creative solutions in relation to a given problem.
Perfection is no small thing, but it is made up of small things.
It is better decoration when, in painting, some monstrosity is introduced for variety and a relaxation of the senses and to attract the attention of mortal eyes, which at times desire to see that which they have never seen...
The greatest artist has no conception which a single block of white marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand obedient to the mind can penetrate to this image.
Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto His glory. That in art is highest which aims at this.
Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man.
With few words I shall make thee understand my soul.
Love is a beautiful image Imagined or seen within the heart, The friend of virtue and gentility.
The goods of Fortune, even such as they really are, still need taste to enjoy them. It is the enjoying no the possessing, that makes us happy.
Dear to me is sleep: still more, being made of stone, While pain and guilt still linger here below, Blindness and numbness – these please me alone; Then do not wake me, keep your voices low.
The great tragedy of life is not that people set their sights too high and fail to achieve their goals but that they set their sights too low and do.
The best of artists hath no thought to show which the rough stone in its superfluous shell doth not include; to break the marble spell is all the hand that serves the brain can do.
The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.
Is it any wonder, since, when near the fire, I was melted and burned, if now that it’s extinguished outside me, it besets and consumes me inside, and bit by bit reduces me to ashes?