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I have always found it a testament to the importance of painting that the first thing many people do when their home is on fire is to grab their paintings and then run out.

Robert Genn

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Robert Genn
Age: 78 †
Born: 1936
Born: May 15
Died: 2014
Died: May 27
Artist
Robert Douglas Genn
Thing
Painting
Always
Fire
People
Running
Found
Home
Grab
Firsts
Paintings
First
Testament
Many
Importance

More quotes by Robert Genn

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Painters paint, and history continues to make fools of curators.
Robert Genn
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Risk in art is experimentation. There is no sorrow in self-driven experimentation.
Robert Genn
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Art is a path on which we honour our world. Art may not be the only path, but it is a good path, even though at times a difficult one. As bearers of this honour, we artists do not need to simply render our world as we see it but as we might ourselves redesign it. As artists, one of our privileges is to invent.
Robert Genn
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Artists are supposed to be the ones with imagination. A good part of our job description is to get regular people to use theirs.
Robert Genn
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A curiosity prompt heightens the senses and hones compositional ability.
Robert Genn
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So who are we going to blame for our disappointments and our failures?
Robert Genn
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As we grow older, we realize just how limiting were our earlier conceptions. Art is something else. Art is fluid, transmutable, open-ended, never complete, and never perfect. Art is an event.
Robert Genn
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An early flourish of confidence is useful. Then there's the small crudities - the slubs and bumps that come with outdoor work - the odd charm of imprecision.
Robert Genn
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A painting has an intrinsic value which has nothing to do with critical assessments.
Robert Genn
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As you do your work, you discover what you love to do.
Robert Genn
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Evolved creators are just as curious about their failures as they are of their successes.
Robert Genn
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The overly-verbal artist is led by his understanding of things--rather than by direct observation of things as they are.
Robert Genn
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Sometimes you have to go through something else to find what you're looking for.
Robert Genn
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Incompetence, in my books, is the failure of the critical faculties to interfere constructively with the natural flow.
Robert Genn
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A list of your own making is the most powerful list of all... The good stuff can be 'love at first sight' - in need of study, courting and claiming. And like a love note, it's nice to have things in writing.
Robert Genn
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Your easel is the nuclear sun of an uncommon universe.
Robert Genn
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I do know, for most of us, the very best of times are when you're in your own space sweating, trying to squeeze quality out of imperfect capabilities.
Robert Genn
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As every artist who has used the method knows - photography's a loyal slave and a tyrannical master.
Robert Genn
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Exploit a subject or a theme to its greatest potential by bringing all possible reference to bear - then put aside the reference and create again using the potential of your unfettered imagination.
Robert Genn
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By thinking you are cleverer and more talented than your buddies, many a career has been blotted.
Robert Genn