Artist Quotes About Color and More
​“I don’t start with a color order, but find the colors as I go.†-- Helen Frankenthaler, American Abstract Expressionist Painter, 1928-2011
Image credit: Sensational Color
​“Color in certain places has the great value of making the outlines and structural planes seem more energetic.†~ Antonio Gaudi Spanish Art Nouveau Architect, 1852-1926
Image credit: Sensational Color
“If you see a tree as blue, then make it blue.†-- Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1848-1903
Image credit: Sensational Color
“I can hide as much as I want in my colours†-- Sara Genn, Canadian Painter
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“For a warm earthy palette, add Raw Umber, Cadmium Red Light, Burnt Umber and Olive Green.†-- Lisa Buck-Goldstein, Contemporary American Watercolor Painter
Image credit: Sensational Color
“See what you can do with your daring with color and your ignorance mixed with it.†-- Charles Webster Hawthorne, American Painter, 1872-1930
Image credit: Charles Webster Hawthorne [Public domain]
“Color is only beautiful when it means something.†-- Robert Henri American Ashcan School Painter, 1865-1929
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Color exists simultaneously with form. Both elements are constantly associated but color strikes you more a rose for instance sometimes form the human body.†-- Ferdinand Hodler Swiss Art Nouveau Painter, 1853-1918
Image credit: Ferdinand Hodler [Public domain]
​“Black is a color of power and strength, and to see all those players, with the captains linking their arms in front-it’s a powerful picture.†-- Hayden Fry American Coach, b. 1929
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Color which, like music, is a matter of vibrations, reaches what is most general and therefore most indefinable in nature: its inner power….†~ Paul Gauguin French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1848-1903
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Oh yes! He loved yellow, did good Vincent… When the two of us were together in Arles, both of us insane, and constantly at war over beautiful colors, I adored red; where could I find a perfect vermilion?†~Paul Gauguin French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1848-1903
Image credit: Sensational Color
“With the brush we merely tint, while the imagination alone produces colour." -- Theodore Gericault French Romantic Painter, 1791-1824
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“Be sensitive to your sensitive inner capacities to respond to color.†~ Nathan Cabot Hale, American Sculptor, b. 1925
Image credit: Mario Gogh
“Put variety in white.†-- Charles Webster Hawthorne, American Painter, 1872-1930
Image credit: Charles Webster Hawthorne [Public domain]
“Never use pure white; it doesn’t exist in nature.†-- Aldro T. Hibbard, American Painter, 1886-1972
Background image credit: Aldro T. Hibbard
“Tintoretto attempted to fill the line of Michelangelo with color, without tracing its principle.†-- Henry Fuseli, Swiss-born British Romantic Painter, 1741-1825
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Color! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.†~ Paul Gauguin French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1848-1903
Image credit: Sensational Color
“It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.†-- Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1848-1903
Image credit: Sensational Color
“If I see everything in gray, and in gray all the colors which I experience and which I would like to reproduce, then why should I use any other color? I’ve tried doing so, for it was never my intention to paint only with gray. But in the course of my work I have eliminated one color after another, and what has remained is gray, gray, gray!" -- Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor, Painter, Draughtsman and Printmaker, 1901-1966
Image credit: Paolo Monti [CC BY-SA 4.0]
“Has anyone ever placed this color more reasonable with more of a sense of time and measure than he?†-- Marsden Hartley, American Painter, 1877-1943
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Each day has its own individuality of color.†~ Charles Webster Hawthorne American Painter, 1872-1930
Image credit: Charles Webster Hawthorne [Public domain]
“Water in swimming pools changes its look more than in any other form… its colour can be man-made and its dancing rhythms reflect not only the sky but, because of its transparency, the depth of the water as well. If the water surface is almost still and there is a strong sun, then dancing lines with the colours of the spectrum appear everywhere.†-- David Hockney British Pop Artist, b. 1937
Image credit: Sensational Color
Do you have any favorite artist quotes about color?
“Each day has its own individuality of color.†by American Painter, Charles Webster Hawthorne is among my favorites. Tell me about yours in the comments section below.
