Portraits quotes
284 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside portraits — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait."
"A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. No one can tell him about that. No one can control that reality. It reminds me of something Pablo Picasso was supposed to have said to Gertrude Stein while he was painting her portrait. Gertrude said, “I don’t look like that.” And Picasso replied, “You will.” And he was right."
"every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself."
"It's quite true that what I am aiming at, even when I take portraits, is to get a scandalous picture. I would love to be a paparazzo."
"The smiling portrait of you is still hanging on my frowning wall."
"When one starts from a portrait and seeks by successive eliminations to find pure form... one inevitably ends up with an egg."
"Portraits are to daily faces As an evening west To a fine, pedantic sunshine In a satin vest."
"A Gustave Courbet portrait of a trout has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion."
"You will never see a portrait of my love, for miracles are never seen."
"Most of our modern portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint what they see. They paint what the public sees, and the public never sees anything."
"Originally, poetry creates the myth, while the prose-writer draws its portrait."
"When you start with a portrait and try to find pure form by abstracting more and more, you must end up with an egg."
"Life The machine The human soul A 75mm breech My portrait"
"We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us"
"When I did my self-portrait, I left all the pimples out because you always should. Pimples are a temporary condition and they don't have anything to do with what you really look like. Always omit the blemishes-they're not part of the good picture you want."
"I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world."
"With the daguerreotype, everyone will be able to have their portrait taken . . . and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same."
"I'm very particular who I work with. I'm not interested in portraying women with a cliched, generic look. I'm interested in a model who I can take a portrait of."
"The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn."
"To be Despair. It is a portrait. Only close your eyes and feel."
