Painting is easy...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The following quote is attributed to Edgar Degas, but I was unable (within the time I had) to locate where he wrote it or said it.

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

This could very easily extend to critiquing art. For example: "Critiquing painting (or critiquing literature, or critiquing music, etc.) is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."

I shall let the implications speak for themselves...

Michael

[jeffrey smith]

Unfortunately, no sources given, but here are apparently more of Degas' comments

http://www.davis.k12.ut.us/fjh/gusdegas.htm

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things."

"If painting weren't so difficult, it wouldn't be fun."

"Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

"A painter paints a picture with the same feeling as that with which a criminal commits a crime."

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things."

"Painting is easy for those that do not know how, but very difficult for those that do!"

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

"People call me the painter of dancers, but I really wish to capture movement itself."

"Conversation in real life is full of half-finished sentences and overlapping talk. Why shouldn't painting be too?"

[Brant Gaede]

The following quote is attributed to Edgar Degas, but I was unable (within the time I had) to locate where he wrote it or said it.

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

This could very easily extend to critiquing art. For example: "Critiquing painting (or critiquing literature, or critiquing music, etc.) is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."

I shall let the implications speak for themselves...

You like to crash and burn, don't you?

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

Heh.

No, I don't like to crash and burn.

But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy explosions and car chases in B films...

Michael

[Newberry]

That's a kind fun quote and paraphrase. But I have to say I never met an artist, beginner or pro, that thought painting was easy - maybe Degas was referring to Platonic painters? ;)

Edited October 5, 2009 by Newberry

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael,

Interestingly, I came across this quote it at the start of the Preface to Marketing to Moviegoers by Robert Marich. I couldn't resist...

Fun is a great word. That's exactly what I felt when I read it. But that's probably because I know how to do music and poetry and am starting to get a real grip on how to do literature. (At the present, I wouldn't possibly issue anything on painting other than personal experiences from having lived with painters, opinions and maybe general observations applicable to all art.)

I suspect this quote isn't so much fun for everybody, though...

Michael