Top 160 Robert Henri Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Don’t stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.”

— Robert Henri

102. “Do not worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to.”

— Robert Henri

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

— Robert Henri

104. “Artists must be men of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers; read, study and think a great deal of life...”

— Robert Henri

105. “Self-education only produces expressions of self.”

— Robert Henri

106. “The artist should have a powerful will. He should be powerfully possessed by one idea.”

— Robert Henri

107. “Manet did not do the expected. He was a pioneer. He followed his individual whim. Told the public what he wanted it to know, not the time worn things the public already knew and thought it wanted to hear again. The public was very much offended.”

— Robert Henri

108. “There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it.”

— Robert Henri

109. “Your painting is the marking of your progression into nature, a sensation of something you see way beyond the two pretty colors over there. Don’t stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.”

— Robert Henri

110. “There has never been a painting that was more beautiful than nature. The model does not unfold herself to you, you must rise to her. She should be the inspiration for your painting. No man has ever over-appreciated a human being.”

— Robert Henri

111. “I am interested in the size of your intention. It is better to overstate the important than to understate it.”

— Robert Henri

112. “Your style is the way you talk in paint.”

— Robert Henri

113. “Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. None of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence.”

— Robert Henri

114. “It is a curious fact that the delicate acoustic arrangements of a music hall can be impaired by the music of inefficient, discordant orchestras, and for this reason poor musical performances have been forbidden in some places. If a poor performance could affect adversely the acoustics of a hall, would not an able performance tend to improve them?”

— Robert Henri

115. “To paint is to know how to put nothing on canvas, and have it look like something when you stand back.”

— Robert Henri

116. “Fight with yourself when you paint, not with the model. A student is one who struggles with himself for order.”

— Robert Henri

117. “The picture that looks as if it were done without an effort may have been a perfect battlefield in its making.”

— Robert Henri

118. “A drawing should be a verdict on the model. Don’t confuse a drawing with a map.”

— Robert Henri

119. “Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture.”

— Robert Henri

120. “There are people who buy pictures because they were difficult to do, and are done. Such pictures are often only a record of pain and dull perseverance. Great works of art should look as though they were made in joy. Real joy is a tremendous activity, dull drudgery is nothing to it.”

— Robert Henri

121. “Many receive a criticism and think it is fine; think they got their money’s worth; think well of the teacher for it, and then go on with their work just the same as before. That is the reason much of the wisdom of Plato is still locked up in the pages of Plato.”

— Robert Henri

122. “The undercurrent and motive of all art is an individual man’s idea. From each we expect what he has to give. We desire it. It is absolutely necessary for him to give it out.”

— Robert Henri

123. “The fun of living is that we have to make ourselves, after all.”

— Robert Henri

124. “Perhaps whatever there is in my work that may be really interesting to others and surely what is interesting to me, is the result of a sometimes successful effort to free myself from any idea that what I produce must be art...”

— Robert Henri

125. “Know what the old masters did. Know how they composed their pictures, but do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them, and they are wonderful. They made their language. You make yours. All the past can help you.”

— Robert Henri

126. “It seems to me that before a man tries to express anything to the world he must recognize in himself an individual, a new one, very distinct from others.”

— Robert Henri

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

— Robert Henri

128. “Look for echoes. Sometimes the same shape or direction will echo through the picture.”

— Robert Henri

129. “If you work from memory, you are most likely to put in your real feeling.”

— Robert Henri

130. “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

131. “Renoir had not only a great interest in human character, in human feeling, but had also a great love for the people he painted.”

— Robert Henri

132. “Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out.”

— Robert Henri

133. “Concentrate on a single feature – as, build all toward one eye – make all lines lead toward that eye.”

— Robert Henri

134. “I can think of no greater happiness than to be clear-sighted and know the miracle when it happens. And I can think of no more real life than the adventurous one of living and liking and exclaiming the things of one’s own time.”

— Robert Henri

135. “If the artist’s will is not strong he will see all kinds of unessential things.”

— Robert Henri

136. “Good composition is like a suspension bridge; each line adds strength and takes none away... Making lines run into each other is not composition. There must be motive for the connection. Get the art of controlling the observer – that is composition.”

— Robert Henri

137. “The model is not to be copied, but to be realized.”

— Robert Henri

138. “The more simply you see, the more simply you will render. People see too much, scatteringly.”

— Robert Henri

139. “The pictures which do not represent an intense interest cannot expect to create an intense interest.”

— Robert Henri

140. “Drawing is not following a line on the model, it is drawing your sense of the thing.”

— Robert Henri

141. “You will never draw the sense of a thing unless you are feeling it at the time you work.”

— Robert Henri

142. “Paint like a fiend when the idea possesses you.”

— Robert Henri

143. “Each man must take the material that he finds at hand, see that in it there are the big truths of life, the fundamentally big forces, and then express in his art whatever is the cause of his pleasure.”

— Robert Henri

144. “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

145. “Things should all be moving toward the expression of a great idea.”

— Robert Henri

146. “Reality is obtained not by imitation, but by producing the sense of nature.”

— Robert Henri

147. “Art is an outsider, a gypsy over the face of the earth.”

— Robert Henri

148. “There is always a commanding and simple line around each head. Learn to have a love for the big simple line.”

— Robert Henri

149. “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

150. “Life is finding yourself. It is a spirit development.”

— Robert Henri