Art

The role of art in my life

Art has always played an important role in my life, in many different ways. For the largest part of my life, I have been a child of creative parents. While my father is an artist and art teacher, my mother is an all-round creative. The artwork on the right is my father's, and so are the ones on the second slide. I'm of course proud of him as his daughter. He's chosen his own unique path in life, and he's always persisting with his work, as well as reinventing his style and techniques . I admire that.

Partly because of my parent's interests and partly because of my own nature, I was drawn to art myself from a young age. Throughout my youth, I was particularly passionate about drawing, happily spending countless hours sketching on paper or a chalkboard, and occasionally delving into painting. Moreover, as my father ran a small ceramics school, I had the opportunity to learn about and practice clay as well. Growing up, making art wasn't something I did to make art, nor was I planning on becoming an artist one day. Instead, drawing and claying were simply nice ways to spend the hours, to visualise something that I found beautiful, to express a thought or feeling, and to connect with friends.

About a decade ago, my relationship with art changed when I decided to study art history. During these years, I did not create much of my own, but became more strongly involved in the arts from a historical and theoretical angle. Even though I felt limited at times within the academic world, my studies in art history were truly magical. Specialised professors first take you on a journey through the general history of art. Once on route, you learn about the connections between art and history, as well as the finer details of artist's lives and their work, of movements, separation, and union. Besides the theoretical part, these studies have taught me to look and read closely, and to approach artworks, history and concepts from different perspectives.

In july 2021, I handed in my masters thesis on three Dutch graphic designers of the Art Nouveau. Seeing that I graduated, I may now call myself an art historian. However, even though I may carry this title now as if I would be a finished product, I rather view it as the starting point from where I hope to learn so much more. Moreover, after getting my degree, I realised that I still have a need to create myself. A much bigger need than I was aware of for a while. Discovering my passion for photography has put me back on the path of creativity, which feels so right.

Consequently, I am excited to see what knowing the history of art will do to the things I'll create myself, and what practicing art will do to my understanding of art history. I can't wait to see where this journey of exploration and creation takes me.

Artist's Quotes

• “I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” — Vincent van Gogh
• “Creativity takes courage.” — Henri Matisse
• “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” — Edward Hopper
• “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” — Andy Warhol
• “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” — Pablo Picasso
• “Great art picks up where nature ends.” — Marc Chagall
• “The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” — Piet Mondrian
• “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” — Salvador Dali
• “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” — Francis Bacon
• “To create one’s own world takes courage.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
• “The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.” — Alberto Giacometti
• “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” — Auguste Rodin
• “It is important to express oneself...provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.” — Berthe Morisot
• “To be an artist is to believe in life.” — Henry Moore
• “Every good painter paints what he is.” — Jackson Pollock
• “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” — Edgar Degas
• “In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
• “What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.” — Eugene Delacroix
• “Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” — Marc Chagall
• “Don't be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.” — Paul Cezanne
• “Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.” — Rene Magritte
• “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” — Marc Chagall
• “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way—things I had no words for.” — Georgia O'Keeffe
• “The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” — Pablo Picasso
• “A Good artist has less time than ideas.” — Martin Kippenberger
• “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” — Andy Warhol
• “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” — Paul Cezanne
• “Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.” — Salvador Dali

Artist Quotes

• “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.” — Leonardo da Vinci
• “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.” — Michelangelo
• “Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” — Claude Monet
• “Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.” — Edvard Munch
• “Painting is a means of self-enlightenment.” — John Olsen
• “I don't say everything, but I paint everything.” — Pablo Picasso
• “The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.” — Vincent Van Gogh
• “The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.” — Banksy
• “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” — Twyla Tharp
• “An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” — Charles Horton Cooley
• “There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.” — Henry Moore
• “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” — Leonardo da Vinci
• “An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it.” — Paul Valéry
• “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” — Aristotle
• “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” — Oscar Wilde
• “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” — Pablo Picasso
• “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” — Stella Adler
• “To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.” — Schumann
• “I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.'” — Vincent Van Gogh
• “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” — Leonardo da Vinci
• “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” — Pablo Picasso
• “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” — Michelangelo
• “For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.” — Georges Rouault
• “Art is the stored honey of the human soul.” — Theodore Dreiser
• “An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” — James McNeill Whistler
• “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” — Vincent Van Gogh
• “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” — Scott Adams
• “Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.” — Edgar Degas
• “Inspiration does exist but it must find you working.” — Pablo Picasso
• “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” — Vincent Van Gogh
• “To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” — Kurt Vonnegut