Most of the selected / edited quotes of the famous artists illustrate and clarify very well the painter’s personal efforts, courage and hard labor to create unique modern art during his or her life. Consequently, their art statements, ideas and concepts as well as their life story – give us an unique insight in the process and evolution of the creation of modern art itself. Moreover we learn in their biography stories about the many mutual connections between the great painters and sculptors. They took place in and around the inspirational places and modern art movements which supported them to survive and learned them to develop their own artistic path of creation.

Every famous artist is basically drifting in a collective sea of memories of the huge history wave of the evolution of modern art. Some painters and sculptors create inside or strongly connected – other great artists do this outside the many groups, styles and art movements!
This very individual and necessary process of each artist we can trace and track by reading their statements and ideas. Their quotes reveal the swifts, moves, and sudden developments in their artistic growth. They show their personal hesitations, spontaneous concepts, struggled experiences, inspirations, and all kind of great artistic ideas they produced connected with their art. So we as readers can have a sense of wiring and tension-fields in which the artists create and life. Of course this is a question of individual powers, but on the other hand also connected, as their life quotes and biography memories show so clearly.

In the famous artist quotes & life stories we can read many personal life memories and experiences. They illustrate the artist’s characteristic connection between personal life + biography facts, and the art they created. I am convinced that this very private and intimate connection represents an substantial part of modern Art History itself, and for a large part well explained by the great painters and sculptors, in their talks and writings! This meant for me as editor a very convincing personal statement, which encourage me to do this job, collecting and editing the growing amount of artist quotes here on the website. And subsequently sharing them (including the sources and great art books, I found them in). So everybody can learn them and connect things on modern art and its artists.

Why
Reading
Famous Artists with their personal Stories?

The ideas, life experiences and concepts of one particular artist give us a lot of information about his or her characteristic approach to create indeed NEW visual forms. We are focusing now on the time of modern art, starting with Impressionism / Realism in the mid-19th century. In that typical art history period in my view – the essence of modern art started. Then started the transformation of mental ideas and presumptions into NEW visual reality. This resulted and still results now in a new Art object – we have to see and to experience in a new way!

It is by our very senses that an object of art starts to come in our daily life. Then it is interesting to know and to understand, what were the covering thoughts, ideas and art statements of this particular great artist? What were the personal art approaches, developed in his or her head? The selected artist quotes and statements express these personal art ideas which helped to materialize the still invisible imagination into real new forms and things. Ideas became famous (or unknown) paintings, sculptures, movies, graphic art, installations, performances, prints ….! The collected artist quotes, with their referred biography facts & personal writings & talks, give us perhaps a surrounding support to connect us with the art-thing itself.

The still invisible becomes visible because a modern artwork presents a new visual reality which we can experience as human being! But before this new form enters our personal life there are a lot of things to be done, by the artist. To create modern art is a real job. It means hard work and demands a lot of courage, independence thinking and some inspiration. ‘Famous and great’ is unsure for every painter or sculptor on the moment of creation itself. That will be decided by art history only!

Why
do Famous Artists
Talk and write about their Art

 
Other great artists had their famous art talks and debates, like the famous German Fluxus-artist Joseph Beuys who loved to have his frequently art-exchanges with the American public – in facts often the young students. Famous are the many art-debates in American Abstract Expressionism, where De Kooning, Rothko and other famous artist participated intensively. But also the debates and arguments in the heart of Dada, between the political and the non-political Dada artists. Just a few examples how artist quotes and statements came to life as expression of debating and art-exchanges.
 

Every serious artist develops at first secret inner visual statements and thoughts in their private biography box. We call it information, ideas, presumptions, theories or temporarily concepts. Only afterwards they can be verified some way or another, after the process of creation and by creation. That is a strange thing to realize. That the artwork means (or is in fact) the answer on many inner questions or hesitations by the artist and partly by the public.
You will find on this website large collections of these pre-existing ideas in the famous artist quotes and art statements – and only a few images of their definite answers by the art works. I sincerely hope this will not confuse too much. And one consolation might be: also the great artists are very frequently referring to other famous artists’ ideas or statements, because they needed a connection in this way, in the network of art and art history. For example the famous French painter Cezanne lights up in this way; many later artists refer to him and to his quotes and sayings. And perhaps because a young writer got then the foolish idea to follow and track daily that old grumpy but honest and ripe master-painter.

All together the artist quotes and biography facts give us an unique insight and deep information from the heart of creation of art itself. Still in words – not yet materialized in physical and visual FORM – but they exist already in thoughts. they are expressing and exchanging ideas, as an important part of the production of modern art.

Why
can Artist Stories and Quotes
explain and clarify art history

Conclusion: the art quotes and their mentioned biography facts by the famous artists and painters represent in my view an essential part of world’s cultural heritage. They are in fact an essential part of modern art history itself, by witnessing the evolution of modern art. The told quotes establish a system or even better an art-network, full of tracks and signs for coming fellow artists, pupils, and even modern art history teachers.
The same counts for the art lovers public – people who just love modern art and use it as their daily inspiration. The life quotes & art statements of the great artists – with their extended biography information and life story facts – are a gift of the former great artists to the new coming generation, the still unknown artists, and the contemporary and future art as a whole. In this view I believe the famous artist quotes are to be seen as a precious part of modern human evolution itself – Fons Heijnsbroek.

I hope you will enjoy these selected famous artist quotes; their art statements and life stories.

editor Fons Heijnsbroek

Art movements described in definitions and core art text-quotes by famous art-critics

On the website on the right you find art movements & art styles, described in facts and definitions. Art movements and artist groups were the historical nests for many great artists – to find warmth and art-company; to exchange and develop ideas and to struggle with other artists. The art movements are of course an essential part of the modern art history and had a large meaning as art circle and setting for all the individual artists.
A number of older European famous art movements, such as Cubism and Futurism are described in art quotes by Jacob Bendien, a Dutch artist living and working in the same period; he died young in 1934. I believe the great history of the modern art movements here described, form together a useful art resource and clarifying tutorial for pupils, students, art-lovers and teachers. That’s the reason why the text-quotes, explaining the history of the art movements are all sourced very well and combined with useful art links for further study and exploration of the art movement and its involved famous artists
The history of the modern art movements after 1940 is described in quotes, selected by Fons Heijnsbroek and translated into English by Anne Porcelijn.

The text-quotes on the modern art movements connect very well with the quotes and statements of the famous artists and painters. For this reason you will find many inter-links between the modern art movements and the great quotes by the artists. You can click onto these art-links in the text-lines directly.