After four tortured years, painting more than 400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old and as weary as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did not recognize the old man I had become.
For you, a comet, under a blue sky, leaves trail of color, For you, a star, dreams of being able to kiss you, dream to hear your voice For you, full moon, keep vigil for you, my girl, keep vigil for you, my love.
I am still learning.
What one has most to work and struggle for in painting is to do the work with a great amount of labour and sweat in such a way that it may afterward appear, however much it was laboured upon, to have been done almost quickly and almost without any labour, and very easily, although it was not.
True art is made noble and religious by the mind producing it.
I sometimes set myself thinking and imagining that I find amongst men but one single art or science, and that is drawing or painting, all others being members proceeding therefrom.
I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop.
Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop.
From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born.
The greatest risk to man is not that he aims to high and misses, but that he aims to low and hits.
Above all, artists must not be only in art galleries or museums – they must be present in all possible activities. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in whatever endeavor people take on, at every level.
A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
Please don’t trouble yourself. God didn’t make us to abandon us.
Bound to you as the rays are to the sun.
Self-negation is noble, self-culture is beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared to self-abuse.
Cel ce iubirea-si ia drept arma, frange destin si ura, forta si mizerii.
The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; only the sculptor’s hand can break the spell to free the figures.
Din ce e farmec si vremelnicie si indurare, raul meu se naste.
The noble heart finds most in starlike eyes.
Anyone who follows others never passes them by, and anyone who does not know how to do good works on his own cannot make good use of works by others.
I am still learning.” -Michelangelo late in his life.