Quotes by Robert Henri

About Robert Henri:

Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School of American realism and an organizer of the group known as "The Eight," a loose association of artists who protested the restrictive exhibition practices of the powerful, conservative National Academy of Design.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.

Robert Henri

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

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 e...

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...

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...

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...

Robert Henri

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

Robert Henri

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

Robert Henri

Those who express even a little of themselves never become old-fashioned.

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 greatne...

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 ...

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

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

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 integr...

Robert Henri

In certain books—some way in the first few paragraphs you know that you have met a brother.

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

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

Robert Henri

Cherish your own emotions and never under-value them. We are not here to do what has already been done.

Robert Henri

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

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

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

Robert Henri

Author Bio

  • NameRobert Henri
  • DescriptionAmerican painter
  • BornJune 24, 1865
  • DiedJuly 12, 1929
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPainter
  • WorksThe Irish Girl; The Laughing Boy (Jopie Van Slouten)