“The motivation of all artists is, ‘Look at me, Mum.’” -Sebastian Horsley
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” -Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968)
Claudia: Where can cow art be found?
Clyde: In moo-seums!
During an exhibit at a museum, a modern artist was explaining his work. “This,” he said, pointing to a completely blank canvas, “is a cow grazing.” “Where is the grass?” asked a visitor. “The cow has eaten it,” the artist answered. “Well, then,” the visitor said, “where is the cow?” “Do you think she would stick around,” the artist replied, “after she had eaten all the grass?”
“The fact that no one understands you doesn’t make you an artist.” -Author Unknown
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Drew.
Drew, who?
Drew a picture for you!
“Art is creating something beautiful where nothing existed before.” -Author Unknown
[Henri] “Matisse’s painting “Le Bateau” hung upside down in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for forty-seven days before anyone noticed (October 18 to December 4, 1961). In that period 116,000 people had visited the gallery.” -Jean Cocteau (1890 - 1963): “Past Tense: Diaries” (1987), Volume 1
Question: They are now worth millions of dollars each, and are much sought after, but how many paintings did Vincent Van Gogh sell in his lifetime?
Answer: Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one of his paintings during his entire lifetime, titled, “Red Vineyard at Arles,” which was bought by his brother.
“I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. Nevertheless the time will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint.” -Vincent van Gogh (Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 - 1890)): in a letter (20 October 1888) to his brother Theo
Alice: What did the painter say to her boyfriend?
Alicia: “I love you with all my art!”
“A very rich man once commissioned a famous artist to do a painting of a fish. One year later the man returned and asked for his painting. The artist took out a clean sheet of paper and painted a beautiful fish while the man waited. The man then asked why it had taken a year to get the painting of the fish. The artist opened a door to a closet, which was filled with 1,000 paintings of that fish.” -Author Unknown
“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.” -Frank Zappa (Francis Vincent ‘Frank’ Zappa, Junior (born 1940))
Bo
An artistic young man called Bo,
To an art class decided to go.
The teacher said, “Not right -
Your page is all white!”
Bo said, “It is a polar bear in snow.”
by Author Unknown
Sculpture: An art that consists of eliminating all superfluous material.
“I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.” -Auguste Rodin (also known as François Auguste René Rodin, Auguste-René Rodin, and François-Auguste Rodin (1840 - 1917)), when asked how he managed to make his statues
Luther: What did the art dealer say when you asked what the abstract picture was supposed to be?
Rutherford: “It is a reflection of the person looking at it.”
“The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.” -Henry S. Haskins (Henry Stanley Haskins (1876 - 1957))
Overheard: You are my favorite work of art.
“Sometimes there is no need to be either clever or original.” -Ivan Chermayeff
“There are only two styles of portrait painting, the serious and the smirk.” -Charles Dickens (Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812 - 1870))
“Art is life seen through a temperament.” -Émile Zola
“Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.” -John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925): as quoted in Evan Esar: “The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations” (1949)
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” -Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, also known as Buonarroti Michelangelo (1475 - 1564))
“Art is awesome!” -Author Unknown
“I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.” -Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, also known as Buonarroti Michelangelo (1475 - 1564))
“If I didn’t start painting, I would have raised chickens.” -Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860 - 1961))
“The real artist’s work is a surprise to himself.” -Robert Henri
Kevin: Which artists live on farms?
Nikki: Vincent van Goat and Pablo Pigcaso.
“An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.” -Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola): “Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)” (1975), chapter 10
“When one buys some of my artwork I hope it is because they will wish to learn from it and not because they think it will match their drapes!” -Christian Cardell Corbet (1997)
“Real art is illumination . . . It adds stature to life.” -Brooks Atkinson (Justin Brooks ‘Brooks’ Atkinson (1894 - 1984))
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” -Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968)
Claudia: Where can cow art be found?
Clyde: In moo-seums!
During an exhibit at a museum, a modern artist was explaining his work. “This,” he said, pointing to a completely blank canvas, “is a cow grazing.” “Where is the grass?” asked a visitor. “The cow has eaten it,” the artist answered. “Well, then,” the visitor said, “where is the cow?” “Do you think she would stick around,” the artist replied, “after she had eaten all the grass?”
“The fact that no one understands you doesn’t make you an artist.” -Author Unknown
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Drew.
Drew, who?
Drew a picture for you!
“Art is creating something beautiful where nothing existed before.” -Author Unknown
[Henri] “Matisse’s painting “Le Bateau” hung upside down in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for forty-seven days before anyone noticed (October 18 to December 4, 1961). In that period 116,000 people had visited the gallery.” -Jean Cocteau (1890 - 1963): “Past Tense: Diaries” (1987), Volume 1
Question: They are now worth millions of dollars each, and are much sought after, but how many paintings did Vincent Van Gogh sell in his lifetime?
Answer: Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one of his paintings during his entire lifetime, titled, “Red Vineyard at Arles,” which was bought by his brother.
“I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. Nevertheless the time will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint.” -Vincent van Gogh (Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 - 1890)): in a letter (20 October 1888) to his brother Theo
Alice: What did the painter say to her boyfriend?
Alicia: “I love you with all my art!”
“A very rich man once commissioned a famous artist to do a painting of a fish. One year later the man returned and asked for his painting. The artist took out a clean sheet of paper and painted a beautiful fish while the man waited. The man then asked why it had taken a year to get the painting of the fish. The artist opened a door to a closet, which was filled with 1,000 paintings of that fish.” -Author Unknown
“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.” -Frank Zappa (Francis Vincent ‘Frank’ Zappa, Junior (born 1940))
Bo
An artistic young man called Bo,
To an art class decided to go.
The teacher said, “Not right -
Your page is all white!”
Bo said, “It is a polar bear in snow.”
by Author Unknown
Sculpture: An art that consists of eliminating all superfluous material.
“I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.” -Auguste Rodin (also known as François Auguste René Rodin, Auguste-René Rodin, and François-Auguste Rodin (1840 - 1917)), when asked how he managed to make his statues
Luther: What did the art dealer say when you asked what the abstract picture was supposed to be?
Rutherford: “It is a reflection of the person looking at it.”
“The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.” -Henry S. Haskins (Henry Stanley Haskins (1876 - 1957))
Overheard: You are my favorite work of art.
“Sometimes there is no need to be either clever or original.” -Ivan Chermayeff
“There are only two styles of portrait painting, the serious and the smirk.” -Charles Dickens (Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812 - 1870))
“Art is life seen through a temperament.” -Émile Zola
“Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.” -John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925): as quoted in Evan Esar: “The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations” (1949)
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” -Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, also known as Buonarroti Michelangelo (1475 - 1564))
“Art is awesome!” -Author Unknown
“I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.” -Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, also known as Buonarroti Michelangelo (1475 - 1564))
“If I didn’t start painting, I would have raised chickens.” -Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860 - 1961))
“The real artist’s work is a surprise to himself.” -Robert Henri
Kevin: Which artists live on farms?
Nikki: Vincent van Goat and Pablo Pigcaso.
“An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.” -Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola): “Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)” (1975), chapter 10
“When one buys some of my artwork I hope it is because they will wish to learn from it and not because they think it will match their drapes!” -Christian Cardell Corbet (1997)
“Real art is illumination . . . It adds stature to life.” -Brooks Atkinson (Justin Brooks ‘Brooks’ Atkinson (1894 - 1984))
“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” -Charles Horton Cooley
“The purpose of art is to stop time.” -Bob Dylan
“Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.” -Lincoln Steffens (1846 - 1936)
“There’s no correlation between creativity and equipment ownership. None. Zilch. Nada. Actually, as the artist gets more into his thing, and as he gets more successful, his number of tools tends to go down. He knows what works for him. Expending mental energy on stuff wastes time.” -Hugh Macleod
“Sculpture is what you bump into when you back up to see a painting.” -Barnett Newman
“Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird?” -Pablo Picasso (Pablo Diego Jose Francisco do Paula Juan Nepomuceno Cipriano de la Santissima Trinidad (1881 - 1973))
“Abstract art? A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled, to the utterly bewildered.” -Al Capp (Alfred Gerald Caplin (1909 - 1979)): as quoted in the “National Observer” (1 July 1963)
“Good art does exist, though less and less in the world. It is worth a few dollars, though never any outrageous sum of money. What is now called art is usually color smears on a surface or pieces of material that has been mangled or stacked off-center and called a sculpture, and at this time, much of what is called art is only a way to separate the gullible from their money. Perhaps someday the world will return to good art and to paying just a few dollars for it.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.” -Paul Gauguin
A Still-Life
An artist woke up from his slumbers
To paint a still-life of cucumbers.
When asked for a hint
About color or tint
He said, “Wait ’til I mark down the numbers.”
by Author Unknown: a limerick about paint-by-numbers
“In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
“It’s clever, but is it art?” -Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)
“Art never expresses anything but itself.” -Oscar Wilde (Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 - 1900))
Do you need art to decorate your castle, palace, one-room apartment, office, mini-mansion, dorm room, cubicle, tent, estate, pod, or cave? Visit www.FreeArt.com. Be sure to mention you found out about them from www.MakeFunOfLife.net.
“Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.” -Tom Stoppard (born 1937 as Tomás Straussler): “Artist Descending a Staircase” (1972)
“Modern art - isn’t that like music with an irregular beat that nobody ever notices, because it is really only background noise?” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
Annabelle: How does Salvador Dali start his mornings?
Christabel: With a bowl of breakfast ‘surreal.’
“The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.” -Paul Klee
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” -Scott Adams (Scott Raymond Adams (born 1957))
“Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.” -Al Hirschfeld
“Painting is easy when you don’t know how but very difficult when you do.” -Edgar Degas
“Looking at ‘modern art’ is like trying to follow the plot in a bowl of alphabet soup.” -Author Unknown
“The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress.” -Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882 - 1944): “The Arts” (1937)
“No art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it.” -Alberti (Leon Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472))
Moe: What does an artist draw just before going to bed?
Joe: Is it the blinds or the curtains?
“No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist.” -Salvador Dali
A doodle is a tiny sketch of a character or object; a whacky doodle is a whimsical such drawing.
“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.” -G. K. Chesterton (Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936)): “Heretics” (1905), Chapter 16
“Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of the true, and for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.” -George Sand (pseudonym of Amandine Lucile Aurore Dudevant (1804 - 1876))
“A painting is never finished; it simply stops in interesting places.” -Paul Gardner
“Can anyone explain art?” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
“It looks like a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes.” -Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910)), commenting on a modern art painting
Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Monet!
Monet, who?
Monet for art does not grow on trees!
“A primitive artist is an amateur whose work sells.” -Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860 - 1961))
“The prudent painter should know how to paint what is appropriate to the individual, the time, and the place . . . Is it not an error to paint St. Jerome with a red hat, like the one cardinals wear today? He was indeed a cardinal, but he did not wear such a costume, since it was Pope Innocent IV, more than 700 years later, who gave cardinals their red hats and red gowns . . . All this proceeds from the ignorance of painters.” -Gilio da Cybele: “Dialogue on the Error of Painters” (1564), as quoted in Daniel J. Boorstin: “The Discoverers” (1983)
“It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall, it’s a painting, and if you can walk around it, it’s a sculpture.” -Author Unknown
“Art is ruled uniquely by the imagination.” -Benedetto Croce
“All art is but imitation of nature.” -Lucius Annaeus Seneca (also known as Seneca the Younger or simply Seneca (3 B.C.E. - C.E. 65))
“In his lifetime van Gogh painted 486 paintings. Oddly enough, 8,975 of them are to be found in the United States.” -Werner Lansburgh
Signs That You Might Be an Artist
- The only piece of new furniture in your home is a $2,000 easel.
- You chose your car for its color rather than fuel economy.
- You butter your toast with your fingers just to feel its texture.
- You have nothing to wear on a date because everything has paint smears on it.
- Your date ends up with paint smears on him or her.
- There are Prussian blue fingerprints on your telephone.
- You know what color of green the lichen growing on the tree is.
- You know the names of more than twenty-eight colors.
- You are more than a month behind on your rent.
- When you take a day off to relax at the beach, you take along an easel, paint, brushes, and several blank canvasses.
- The only book you own is a book with large full-color illustrations of renaissance art, with paint smears on the pages.
- You frequently take your work on the road by loading up your vehicle with examples of your best art and make the rounds of the galleries in nearby towns, and you wonder if Monet ever did the same thing with a horse and wagon.
“The ‘Earth’ without ‘art’ is just ‘Eh.’” -Author Unknown
[Of James Whistler] “His most famous painting was titled “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1” (1871), but it’s more commonly known as “Whistler’s Mother.” It’s a portrait of Anna Matilda McNeill Whistler in a black dress, seated in profile against a gray wall. When Whistler’s scheduled model didn’t show up for a sitting, he decided to paint his mother instead.” -Author Unknown: as quoted in “The Writer’s Almanac” (11 July 2012)
“Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding.” -Gian Carlo Menotti (1911 - 2007)
“Some people color inside the lines, others color outside the lines. Me? I eat the crayons.” -Bill Carter
“The highest triumph of art, is the truest presentation of nature.” -Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806 - 1867)
This is MFOL! . . . it’s like fine art that is available to everyone . . .
“The purpose of art is to stop time.” -Bob Dylan
“Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.” -Lincoln Steffens (1846 - 1936)
“There’s no correlation between creativity and equipment ownership. None. Zilch. Nada. Actually, as the artist gets more into his thing, and as he gets more successful, his number of tools tends to go down. He knows what works for him. Expending mental energy on stuff wastes time.” -Hugh Macleod
“Sculpture is what you bump into when you back up to see a painting.” -Barnett Newman
“Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird?” -Pablo Picasso (Pablo Diego Jose Francisco do Paula Juan Nepomuceno Cipriano de la Santissima Trinidad (1881 - 1973))
“Abstract art? A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled, to the utterly bewildered.” -Al Capp (Alfred Gerald Caplin (1909 - 1979)): as quoted in the “National Observer” (1 July 1963)
“Good art does exist, though less and less in the world. It is worth a few dollars, though never any outrageous sum of money. What is now called art is usually color smears on a surface or pieces of material that has been mangled or stacked off-center and called a sculpture, and at this time, much of what is called art is only a way to separate the gullible from their money. Perhaps someday the world will return to good art and to paying just a few dollars for it.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.” -Paul Gauguin
A Still-Life
An artist woke up from his slumbers
To paint a still-life of cucumbers.
When asked for a hint
About color or tint
He said, “Wait ’til I mark down the numbers.”
by Author Unknown: a limerick about paint-by-numbers
“In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
“It’s clever, but is it art?” -Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)
“Art never expresses anything but itself.” -Oscar Wilde (Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 - 1900))
Do you need art to decorate your castle, palace, one-room apartment, office, mini-mansion, dorm room, cubicle, tent, estate, pod, or cave? Visit www.FreeArt.com. Be sure to mention you found out about them from www.MakeFunOfLife.net.
“Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.” -Tom Stoppard (born 1937 as Tomás Straussler): “Artist Descending a Staircase” (1972)
“Modern art - isn’t that like music with an irregular beat that nobody ever notices, because it is really only background noise?” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
Annabelle: How does Salvador Dali start his mornings?
Christabel: With a bowl of breakfast ‘surreal.’
“The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.” -Paul Klee
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” -Scott Adams (Scott Raymond Adams (born 1957))
“Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.” -Al Hirschfeld
“Painting is easy when you don’t know how but very difficult when you do.” -Edgar Degas
“Looking at ‘modern art’ is like trying to follow the plot in a bowl of alphabet soup.” -Author Unknown
“The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress.” -Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882 - 1944): “The Arts” (1937)
“No art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it.” -Alberti (Leon Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472))
Moe: What does an artist draw just before going to bed?
Joe: Is it the blinds or the curtains?
“No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist.” -Salvador Dali
A doodle is a tiny sketch of a character or object; a whacky doodle is a whimsical such drawing.
“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.” -G. K. Chesterton (Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936)): “Heretics” (1905), Chapter 16
“Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of the true, and for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.” -George Sand (pseudonym of Amandine Lucile Aurore Dudevant (1804 - 1876))
“A painting is never finished; it simply stops in interesting places.” -Paul Gardner
“Can anyone explain art?” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
“It looks like a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes.” -Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910)), commenting on a modern art painting
Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Monet!
Monet, who?
Monet for art does not grow on trees!
“A primitive artist is an amateur whose work sells.” -Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860 - 1961))
“The prudent painter should know how to paint what is appropriate to the individual, the time, and the place . . . Is it not an error to paint St. Jerome with a red hat, like the one cardinals wear today? He was indeed a cardinal, but he did not wear such a costume, since it was Pope Innocent IV, more than 700 years later, who gave cardinals their red hats and red gowns . . . All this proceeds from the ignorance of painters.” -Gilio da Cybele: “Dialogue on the Error of Painters” (1564), as quoted in Daniel J. Boorstin: “The Discoverers” (1983)
“It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall, it’s a painting, and if you can walk around it, it’s a sculpture.” -Author Unknown
“Art is ruled uniquely by the imagination.” -Benedetto Croce
“All art is but imitation of nature.” -Lucius Annaeus Seneca (also known as Seneca the Younger or simply Seneca (3 B.C.E. - C.E. 65))
“In his lifetime van Gogh painted 486 paintings. Oddly enough, 8,975 of them are to be found in the United States.” -Werner Lansburgh
Signs That You Might Be an Artist
- The only piece of new furniture in your home is a $2,000 easel.
- You chose your car for its color rather than fuel economy.
- You butter your toast with your fingers just to feel its texture.
- You have nothing to wear on a date because everything has paint smears on it.
- Your date ends up with paint smears on him or her.
- There are Prussian blue fingerprints on your telephone.
- You know what color of green the lichen growing on the tree is.
- You know the names of more than twenty-eight colors.
- You are more than a month behind on your rent.
- When you take a day off to relax at the beach, you take along an easel, paint, brushes, and several blank canvasses.
- The only book you own is a book with large full-color illustrations of renaissance art, with paint smears on the pages.
- You frequently take your work on the road by loading up your vehicle with examples of your best art and make the rounds of the galleries in nearby towns, and you wonder if Monet ever did the same thing with a horse and wagon.
“The ‘Earth’ without ‘art’ is just ‘Eh.’” -Author Unknown
[Of James Whistler] “His most famous painting was titled “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1” (1871), but it’s more commonly known as “Whistler’s Mother.” It’s a portrait of Anna Matilda McNeill Whistler in a black dress, seated in profile against a gray wall. When Whistler’s scheduled model didn’t show up for a sitting, he decided to paint his mother instead.” -Author Unknown: as quoted in “The Writer’s Almanac” (11 July 2012)
“Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding.” -Gian Carlo Menotti (1911 - 2007)
“Some people color inside the lines, others color outside the lines. Me? I eat the crayons.” -Bill Carter
“The highest triumph of art, is the truest presentation of nature.” -Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806 - 1867)
This is MFOL! . . . it’s like fine art that is available to everyone . . .