Pierre Bonnard famous quotes

03-28-2025

I am just beginning to understand what it is to paint. A painter should have two lives, one in which to learn, and one in which to practice his art.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Art #Practice #Two
You cannot possibly invent painting all by yourself.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Painting
Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, and express your pleasure strongly.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Paint #Pleasure #Draws
The precision of naming takes away from the uniqueness of seeing.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Vision #Precision #Uniqueness
Speaking, when you have something to say, is like looking. But who looks? If people could see properly, and see whole, they would all be painters. And it's because people have no idea how to look that they hardly ever understand.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Ideas #People #Looks
Color does not add a pleasant quality to design - it reinforces it.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Death #Color #Design
Drawing is feeling. Color is an act of reason.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Drawing #Color #Feelings
Painting has to get back to its original goal, examining the inner lives of human beings.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Goal #Painting #Humans
A painting that is well composed is half finished.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Half #Painting #Wells
What attracted me was less art itself than the artistâ€™s life and all that it meant for me: the idea of creativity and freedom of expression and action. I had been attracted to painting and drawing for a long time, but it was not an irresistible passion; what I wanted, at all costs, was to escape the monotony of life.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Art #Passion #Creativity
Art will never be able to exist without nature.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Art #Able
And after drawing comes composition. A well-composed painting is half done
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Drawing #Half #Done
The important thing is to remember what most impressed you and to put it on canvas as fast as possible.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Important #Canvas #Remember
It seemed to me that it was possible to translate light, forms, and character using nothing but color, without recourse to values.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Character #Color #Light
What I am after is the first impression - I want to show all one sees on first entering the room - what my eye takes in at first glance.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Eye #First Impression #Entering
The painter's only solid ground is the palette and colors, but as soon as the colors achieve an illusion, they are no longer judged.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Color #Illusion #Achieve
The artist who paints the emotions creates an enclosed world... the picture... which, like a book, has the same interest no matter where it happens to be. Such an artist, we may imagine, spends a great deal of time doing nothing but looking, both around him and inside him.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Book #Artist #World
It is still color, it is not yet light.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Color #Light #Energy
Work on the accent, it will enliven the whole.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Strength #Accents
One does not always sing out of happiness.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Doe
It's not a matter of painting life, it's a matter of giving life to painting.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Life #Giving #Matter
You reason colour more than you reason drawing Colour has a logic as severe as form.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Drawing #Logic #Reason
Art is not nature... There was a lot more to be got out of color.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Art #Color #Art Is
The principal subject is the surface, which has its color, its laws over and above those of object.
-- Pierre Bonnard

#Color #Law #Surface

You may also like:

Andre Derain
Artist
Balthus
Artist
Camille Pissarro
Painter
Claude Monet
Painter
Edgar Degas
Artist
Edouard Manet
Artist
Edouard Vuillard
Painter
Fernand Leger
Painter
Georges Braque
Painter
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Painter
Henri Matisse
Artist
Maurice de Vlaminck
Painter
Maurice Denis
Painter
Odilon Redon
Painter
Paul Cezanne
Artist
Paul Gauguin
Artist
Paul Signac
Painter
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Artist
Raoul Dufy
Illustrator
Yves Saint Laurent
Fashion designer