I Have Found a Song (artists’ book with 5 original prints)
Paula Rego
Enitharmon Editions
£5500
Marc Chagall quotes that offer insight into Chagall’s thoughts on art, love, inspiration, and the role of the artist. They reflect his belief in the power of creativity and the ability of art to evoke emotion and wonder in the world.
“Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers – and never succeeding.”
“Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul.”
“In our life, there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.”
“Great art picks up where nature ends.”
“The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world.”
“In art, it is permissible to steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration and fills the eye or the imagination with an emotional response.”
“When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it – a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand – as a kind of final test.”
“Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.”
“Art is the most beautiful deception of all. And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory.”
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.”