400 Powerful Art Therapy Quotes To Help You Heal (2023)

1. “Music is an art that goes well beyond science. Proof can be found in the huge amount of studies that have been carried out throughout the world based on music-therapy and the important results achieved.”

2. “Arts and culture make considerable and necessary contributions to the well-being of communities. Arts and culture are powerful tools with which to engage communities in various levels of change. They are a means to public dialogue, contribute to the development of a community’s creative learning, create healthy communities capable of action, provide a powerful tool for community mobilization and activism, and help build community capacity and leadership.” ~ Creative City Network of Canada

3. Is there a link between art and mental illness?

4. “The medical profession has come a long way in recognizing the healing benefits of art. My hope is that someday the arts will be considered as significant and essential in everyone’s lives as breathing fresh air, eating clean foods, and engaging in physical exercise.” ~ Renée Phillips

5. “If an art installation gets a patient out of his room or paintings take a person’s mind off their pain and lower their stress levels, the art isn’t just decorative anymore. It’s part of the entire model of care.”

6. “Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.” – Claude Monet

7. “Art is built on the deepest themes of human meaning: good and evil, beauty and ugliness, life and death, love and hate.” – John Ortberg

8. “Our primary function is to create an emotion and our secondary function is to sustain that emotions.“― Alfred Hitchcock

9. The lighthouse

10. Build a safe place

11. Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep

12. “The Achilles heel of an artist lies in the hope that his art is good.“― Kapil Gupta

13. Art as Relationship

14. Art as Therapy: Collected Papers – Edith Kramer

15. “Anything I can not transform into something marvellous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.“― Anais Nin

16. “Art is the lesser sister to medicine. It aims to heal.”

17. “The sense of adequacy that comes from mastery of artistic techniques and media is linked to self-discipline and inevitability leads to positive self regard. From this comes a sacred passion for life.”

18. “A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.” -Vincent Van Gogh

19. “I have a flood of ideas in my mind. I just follow my vision.” – Yayoi Kusama

20. “The beautiful, which is perhaps inseparable from art, is not after all tied to the subject, but to the pictorial representation. In this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it.” – Paul Klee

21. Unmasked – Expressive Art Therapy Directive

22. “The task of therapy is not to eliminate suffering but to give a voice to it, to find a form in which it can be expressed. Expression is itself transformation; this is the message that art brings. The therapist then would be an artist of the soul, working with sufferers to enable them to find the proper container for their pain, the form in which it would be embodied.”

23. “At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity.”

24. Artistic expression as a healthy act

25. “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” – Leo Tolstoy

26. “The act of painting is a spiritual covenant between the maker and the higher powers. The intent of the artist flows through the work of art, no matter what the technique or style.”

27. The creative arts provide opportunities to make concrete objects representing feelings and thoughts that are elusive, hidden, and mysterious

28. “Every artist was first an amateur.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

29. If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced

30. “Art speaks where words are unable to explain.”

31. Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known

32. “It is impossible that there should be so much providence in the last details, and none in the first principles. Then the arts of prophecy and of healing, which are part of the cosmos, come of the good providence of the Gods.”

33. “Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

34. “I make art when I can't gather the words to say.”

35. “There are so many things in life to make you happy. The sound of a child laughing, a rainbow, or a friend losing a ton of weight; and giving away their Lululemon pants that are too big for them now.”

36. “I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me.”― Roy Lichtenstein

37. “Personality is everything in art and poetry.“― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

38. “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” – Auguste Rodin

39. “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”― Émile Zola

40. “The power of nature is such that it’s what all art strives to be. The more we can get in tune with the harmony of the planet, the more our art can benefit from that relationship.“― Rick Rubin

41. Art speaks where words are unable to explain

42. “Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing.” – Julia Cameron

43. “I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense.“― David Lynch

44. “Art is not a part of life, it is not an addition to life, it is the essence of those pieces of us that make us fulfilled. That give us hope. That give us dreams and provide the world a view very different than what it would have been without us.” – Hasan Davis

45. “The great artists of the past were aware that human life is full of chaos and suffering. But they had a remedy for this. And the name of that remedy was ‘beauty’. The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy. It shows human life to be worthwhile.“― Roger Scruton

46. “For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art. Without anxiety and illness I should have been like a ship without a rudder.” Edvard Munch

47. “The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.”

48. Focus on a pathological understanding of art products; suggests that patients with certain types of psychiatric disorders create art that is similar enough as to allow classification

49. Does art help with PTSD?

50. “During my 30 years at Americans for the Arts, I have had the great privilege to visit and learn about a different community nearly every week. While they differ vastly from one another, there is one common strength I have observed: the arts have made a profound impact on the health of each community.” ~ Robert L. Lynch, President, Americans for the Arts

51. “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

52. “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”

53. “To express one’s self artistically can aid in the healing process by surfacing meaning.”

54. Creativity is intelligence have fun

55. “…the ultimate concerns of existence. Prominent among them are; freedom, aloneness, guilt, each person’s responsibility for her own life the inevitability of suffering and death, and a deep longing for meaning.”

56. “I think artists can go to a level of vision that can often save us from a situation which seems to have no solution whatsoever.” – Susan Griffin

57. “…a view if the arts as an unconscious religion.”

58. “With the art therapy, as soon as they saw the paper and crayons coming, we couldn’t get it out fast enough. And we told them to draw about the tsunami.”

59. “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” – Henry Ward Beecher

60. “All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art.”

61. Art as Existentialism

62. “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams

63. “I have always found it fascinating​ that this system (stratified pyramid/caste system) works in such a way as to discourage contact with the patient.”

64. “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.“― Marc Chagall

65. “Art is the activity by which a person, having experienced an emotion, intentionally transmits it to others.”

66. “Art is the highest form of hope.”

67. The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul

68. Concretization of introject exchange

69. “The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” – Michelangelo

70. “My reality isn't as gracious as it use to be, so I create things that are.”

71. “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.“― Stella Adler

72. “I create beautiful art, so I can look back on the life my body fell short of in such a way that it brings me peace.”

73. “Art can heal it if art is allowed to exist. And if art is slowly wiped off the face of the planet, then what tools do we have to reach people, to appeal to them and all of their senses?”

74. “Art is about energy positive and negative. All art has the power to heal because it helps us see who we are, and what we resist.”

75. “What keeps my heart awake is colourful silence.“― Claude Monet

76. “The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist’s own spiritual nature.” – George Inness

77. “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

78. “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.“― Oscar Wilde

79. “When I paint, I never think of selling. People fail to understand that we paint in order to experiment and to develop ourselves as we strive for greater heights.“ ― Edvard Munch

80. “Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art.“― Neil Gaiman

81. “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.“― Leo Tolstoy

82. “Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self-image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them.“― Tyler Cowen

83. “Art is never finished, only abandoned.“― Leonardo da Vinci

84. “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh

85. “I’m Not Coddling Her Anymore”: After Years Of Walking On Eggshells Around Her Childless Sister, This Mother Stands Up For Her Son

86. I will use this time to honor the work that we have done together

87. “beyond words​”

88. What are the benefits of the arts?

89. Does doing art help with mental health?

90. “Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move.”

91. “One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience.“― Ursula K. Le Guin

92. “Art making has the ability to move people along their journey of grief and loss into a more balanced place of healing and hope. In the face of tragedy, the creative process can help re-calibrate a mourner’s life.” ~ The Chandler Gallery at Maud Morgan Arts

93. “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”

94. “The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.” – Claude Monet

95. “I Was Baffled”: Argument Ensues After Friends Said Man Can’t Take His 5-Year-Old Daughter On Their Annual Fishing TripNew Landlord Demands Tenants Restore The Garden To Its Original State, Loses It When He Sees It's Now Just A Patch Of Dirt

96. “Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.” – William Blake

97. “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.“ ― Paul Cezanne

98. “It is not enough to know your craft, you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.“― Edouard Manet

99. “Art can permeate the very deepest part of us, where no words exist.” – Eileen Miller

100. “Each time I would do a performance, I would use it as a tool to actually deal with my emotions, to stage my feelings, and to go through the things I was afraid of. Doing this in front of an audience was so incredibly rewarding that I will never go back to any other medium like painting or sculpture. Performance went far deeper, it was a guided communication with the public … I found that showing vulnerability, that is the greatest thing ever.” Marina Abramović

101. “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”

102. Art as Mastery

103. The Book of Zentangle – Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas

104. Image as intermediary

105. “Drawing things makes them seem more real and makes me feel more alive. It also makes me pin down and remember things landscapes, season, weather, occasions, incidents, people that would otherwise have melted from my memory.“― David Gentleman

106. “It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover, to your surprise, that you have rendered something in its true character.“― Camille Pissarro

107. The primary feelings related to events in the patient’s life remain powerfully attached to artistic portrayals

108. “I applied streaks and blobs of colours onto the canvas with a palette knife, and I made them sing with all the intensity I could…”

109. “Whoever wants to know something about me, they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.“― Gustav Klimt

110. “It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.“― Albert Einstein

111. “Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.“― Anselm Kiefer

112. “In magic we have a variety of uses for our art beyond magic itself, which reminds me of the notion of art therapy. The rendering of art inferior to therapy is an interesting one: interesting in the sense that it makes me want to vomit angrily.”

113. “Over the years, I’ve periodically found myself in situations that felt desperate and, in those moments, I’d feel that I needed to make certain things.” David Wojnarowicz

114. “Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say ‘almost' because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor's ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea.”- Barbara Hepworth

115. “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” – Twyla Tharp

116. “Painting from nature is not copying the object, it's realizing one's sensations.“― Paul Cezanne

117. “I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.” – Frida Kahlo

118. “Do You Really Want That On Your Body Forever?”: 30 Of The Worst Tattoos Shared On This Online GroupGuy Puts In His "Notice Of Immediate Resignation" After Boss Disregards Their Verbal Agreement, Warns Others To Always Write Things Down

119. “Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” – Edgar Degas

120. “Art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live.”

121. “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”

122. “Suffering is so real and I walk amongst so many who have no idea how much my soul is aching to be healed.”

123. Art as Communication

124. “In reference to Einstein's definition of insanity...

125. “We recognized the role of imagination and ritual that is shared between contemporary psychotherapies and all ancient traditions. It was also evident that the arts are the bridging existential phenomena that unite ritual, imagination and dream-world in a way that no other activity can do.” -Paulo Knill (p50 in Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy)

126. Artists don’t make objects. Artists make mythologies

127. “Would You Notice Me" is a beautifully intense read. The imagery is engaging....”the Merlot waterfall” and “confetti’d parts” lines for instance, and the the voice of the poem as a whole.”

128. “The arts, as media of the imagination, are disciplines which give form and substance to our capacity to be who we are. Each artistic medium embodies the imagination in a concrete and specific way.” – Stephen K. Levine

129. “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas

130. ‘Art is long, life is short’, goes the old adage, and arranging a limited number of paintings to represent the numerous developments and styles of Western art is by all standards a Herculean task.

131. Art as Work

132. “To my mind a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful and pretty. There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is, without creating still more of them.“― Pierre-Auguste Renoir

133. “It's not in the draftsmanship, it's in the man. Like I say, a tool is dead. A brush is a dead object. It's in the man. If you want to do it, you do it.”― Jack Kirby

134. You are a work of art!

135. “There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.“― Pablo Picasso

136. “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.” – Leonardo da Vinci

137. “When the body is in rhythm, there is ease. When the body, or any part of the body goes out of rhythm, there is disease.”

138. “I want to make paintings that look as if they were made by a child.” – Jean-Michel Basquiat

139. “The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.“― Joan Miro

140. “I could say things with color and shape that I couldn’t’ say any other way – things I had no words for…”

141. “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” – Bob Ross

142. “Art is like therapy; what comes up is what comes up. It may be dark, but that’s what comes up. You may want to keep some of it in a drawer but never judge it.”

143. Art is the highest form of hope

144. “Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

145. “The mood changes when our beautiful nature photos are placed on the walls, providing color, comfort, and hope to patients, caregivers, and loved ones.” ~ Elaine Poggi, founder of The Foundation for Photo/Art in Hospitals (Read article.)

146. “Art is the daughter of freedom.” – Friedrich Schiller

147. “Since I was a young girl I wanted to make art. My hope in art is to spread the joy and the love of being human. I think a lot about what it means to be an artist in the world today. It is a time of much turmoil and strife. And yet, we can see light all around us.” Yayoi Kusama

148. Imaginal material as overt expressions of unconscious conflictual material; particular meanings can be advised to symbolic images; roots in Freudian analysis; representations of sexual and aggressive drives; images as concrete representations of the pathological

149. Affirmation (positive regard for staff/treatment process)

150. “The investments we are making here won’t just help our students explore music, dance and the arts. They will help these children grow in a way that helps them succeed in school and in life.” ~ Bill de Blasio

151. “Drawing is a form of probing. And the first generic impulse to draw derives from the human need to search, to plot points, to place things and to place oneself.“― John Berger

152. “A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.” – Leonardo da Vinci

153. “Art is my cure to all this madness, sadness and loss of belonging in the world & through it I'll walk myself home.”

154. “The best reason to paint is that there is no reason to paint.“― Keith Haring

155. “The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from.“― David Bowie

156. “Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.” ~John Lubbock (1834-1913), “The Pleasures of Life”

157. The poem collage

158. “Art is my cure to all this madness, sadness and loss of belonging in the world & through it I’ll walk myself home.”

159. “Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Pablo Picasso

160. “To my mind one does not put oneself in place of the past, one only adds a new link.” – Paul Cézanne

161. The self-care box

162. “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” – Pablo Picasso

163. “An artist must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye.“― Michelangelo

164. “The main thing in making art often is letting go of your expectation and your idea.“― Agnes Martin

165. “The arts are a critical component of healthcare. Expressive art is a tool to explore, develop and practice creativity as a means to wellness.” ~ Wellarts Association

166. “Those who do not want to imitate anything produce nothing.“― Salvador Dali

167. “Art has many avenues; love is carried through many vessels. Your oceans are your colours, your ship is your brush and your treasures are in your heart.“― Moncy Barbour

168. “The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.”― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

169. Color your feelings

170. “The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.” – Jerzy Kosinski

171. “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.“― Georgia O’Keeffe

172. “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write,

173. The Closet Effect (symbolic connection maintained to the safe, nurturing, and predictable enviro)

174. “If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him… We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.” ~ John F. Kennedy

175. “Practice what you know and it will help you to make clear what you do not know.“― Rembrandt

176. “Expressive art therapy integrates all of the arts in a safe, non-judgmental setting to facilitate personal growth and healing. To use the arts expressively means going into our inner realms to discover feelings and to express them through visual art, movement, sound, writing or drama. This process fosters release, self-understanding, insight and awakens creativity and transpersonal states of consciousness.”

177. “If the artist has outer and inner eyes for nature, nature rewards him by giving him inspiration.” – Wassily Kandinsky

178. “Making art is the most relaxing, joyous, therapeutic stimulating way to spend your time, as you unleash the part of your brain that's been itching to get at it.“― Harley Brown

179. “When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you. Your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics...and one by one, if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting, you walk out.”

180. “Art is the window to man’s soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within.”

181. “Creativity is intelligence having fun.“― Albert Einstein

182. “Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art.“― Susan Sontag

183. “Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.“― Georges Braque

184. “I know that when I finish a drawing, my anxiety level decreases. When I draw it means that something bothers me, but I don’t know what it is. So it is the treatment of anxiety.” Louise Bourgeois

185. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – A. Einstein

186. “For me drawing is an attempt to understand what I feel about the world I live in.“― Brian Froud

187. “Words don’t heal. Art heals!”

188. “Making art is like giving a gift: evidence of your spirit and that you are here.” – Patty Mitchell

189. “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” – John W. Gardner

190. “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

191. “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get the work done. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you're not going to make an awful lot of work.“― Chuck Close

192. “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.“― Henry David Thoreau

193. Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time

194. Art Therapy Sourcebook – Cathy Malchiodi

195. “The work of the artist is to heal the soul.”

196. “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo

197. “An art that heals and protects its subject is a geography of scars.”

198. Meta-verbal therapy

199. “Art is a wound turned into light.” ~ Georges Braque

200. “You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life.“― Joan Miro

201. “Drawing is vision on paper.“― Andrew Loomis

202. “Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don’t see a different purpose for it now.” ~ Dorothea Tanning

203. Not only can we create art creates us

204. “The systems they nourish, which include our integrated sensory, attentional, cognitive, emotional, and motor capacities, are, in fact, the driving forces behind all other learning.” ~ Eric Jensen, author of Arts with the Brain in Mind

205. “An important objective of self-reflection is to obtain access to the unconscious. It is understood that certain aspects of everyone are known to them, while an indeterminate number of other elements are unknown. As Erikson (1980), Freud (2010), and Kohut (1971) suggest, unknown elements of an individual’s personality significantly influence behaviour.”

206. I was created to create

207. “I paint flowers so they will not die.“― Frida Kahlo

208. “To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.“― Kurt Vonnegut

209. Visual starter

210. “When artists give form to revelation, their art can advance, deepen and potentially transform the consciousness of their community.” ~ Alex Grey

211. Art therapy postcard activity

212. “It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.“― Paul Cezanne

213. “Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.“― Ray Bradbury

214. “The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.” ~ Paracelsus

215. “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

216. “Explored through the images of the participants is how the process of the weekly creation and reflection on the self-portrait facilitates the individual’s self-awareness regarding their current functioning and sense of well-being through emotional, spiritual and bodily awareness.”

217. “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.“― Pablo Picasso

218. “Creating artwork allows your mind to be in a safe place while it contemplates the tougher issues you are dealing with. One can use the tools of brush, paint, pastels, crayons etc to expose and even for a short time color those issues in a different light.”

219. “One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.“― Balthus

220. “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

221. “Great art picks up where nature ends.”

222. “If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

223. “The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.” – Walt Whitman

224. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.“― Pablo Picasso

225. “There’s a lot of thought in art. People get to talk about important things.” – Steve Martin

226. “Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colours flowers, so does art colour life.“― John Lubbock

227. “It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.” – Louise Bourgeois

228. Giving Back

229. The family sculpture

230. “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” – Oscar Wilde

231. “Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.“― Dale Carnegie

232. “Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.” – John Ruskin

233. “One who knows how to appreciate color relationships, the influence of one color with another, their contrasts and dissonances, is promised an infinite variety of images.”― Sonia Delaunay

234. Art Therapy Techniques and Applications – Susan Buchalter

235. “I make art when I can’t gather the words to say.” – Nikki Rowe

236. “Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.” – Salvador Dalí

237. “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” – Leonardo da Vinci

238. “AITA? I Went On Vacation With My Friend And Her Family, They Kicked Me Out So I Got My Own Room And Stayed On”

239. “Art therapy encourages individuals to express and understand emotions, resolve issues and improve self-awareness.”

240. “Art is not a thing; it is a way.”

241. Life is what you create!

242. “If you as a designer don’t believe in your design and don’t see it beyond the context of the film, instead of as a real creature in a real world then how can you expect the audience to believe it?“― Peter Jackson

243. “A new study called ‘Positive Affect and Markers of Inflammation: Discrete Positive Emotions Predict Lower Levels of Inflammatory Cytokines,’ published in the journal Emotion, found that activities that inspire awe may actually boost the immune system.” ~ Laura C. Mallonee, hyperallergic.com

244. “Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.“― Keith Haring

245. Working through – intensely interested in the image content of the patient’s productions (do the themes seen confirm and reinforce the other info?)

246. “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

247. “I Felt So Shaken Up”: Woman Leaves Family Trip After Eavesdropping On Husband’s Conversation With Mother-In-Law

248. “The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit.” – Ansel Adams

249. “At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity.” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

250. Art as Soul

251. “The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.“― Wassily Kandinsky

252. “Autism: Where the "randomness of life" collides and clashes with an individual"s need for the sameness~”

253. “When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet, it was a golden age, for we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I shall not venture to discuss. But I do know, that many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. We must all hope we find them.” Mark Rothko

254. The therapeutic use of art provides an opportunity for the patient-artist to render emotional portraits of significant others in their lives

255. What is the relationship between art and psychology?

256. Creativity takes courage

257. How does art reduce stress and anxiety?

258. “Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.“― Al Hirschfeld

259. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

260. “When I'm painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only after a ‘get acquainted period’ that I see what I've been about.“― Jackson Pollock

261. “Through art there is an opportunity to connect with the unconscious which can foster increased self-awareness. Through this connection lived experience can be explored, including both positive and negative effects enabling the opportunity for healing.”

262. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle

263. “I believe in the energy of art, and through the use of that energy, the artist's ability to transform his or her life, and by example, the lives of others.”

264. “My reality isn’t as gracious as it use to be, so I create things that are.”

265. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”

266. “Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world.” ~ Andre Maurois, French Author

267. “The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist.“― Eric Gill

268. “Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.” – Susanne Langer

269. Do artists have schizophrenia?

270. Image as messenger

271. “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.“― Henry Ward Beecher

272. “Work is good. If I don’t make things, I become ill and depressed. Painting makes me feel like a better human being. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing.” Tracey Emin

273. “Art is about building a new foundation, not just laying something on top of what’s already there.” – Prince

274. “My idea of heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing.“

275. Find the art in everything

276. “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.“― Pablo Picasso

277. “My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art.” – Clara Schumann

278. “The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.“― Neil Gaiman

279. The dynamic energy generated through creative action is of consequential merit as a source of satisfaction and valuation of personal worth

280. “Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality.“― John Dewey

281. “If art is therapy, if art is to inspire, if art is a weapon, if it is a medicine to heal soul wounds, if it makes one not feel alone in his or her visions, or if it serves as transportation to a higher self, then that is where I aspire to live every day.”

282. Why are artists so emotional?

283. Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos

284. “I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”

285. “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

286. Great art picks up where nature ends

287. “Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.” – Keith Haring

288. “Art is a wound turned into light.”- Georges Braque

289. “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

290. “The country is so wounded, bleeding, and hurt right now. The country needs to be healed—it’s not going to be healed from the top, politically. How are we going to heal? Art is the healing force.” ~ Robert Redford, National Arts Policy Roundtable 2012

291. “Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see - to see correctly - and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.“― Kimon Nicolaides

292. “…To be sure, all of this is done in order to create something for which reason we can call it work and not rage.” (Menninger, K. / Love Against Hate)

293. Talk as validation

294. “The arts are a great way to heal because when you create, you also recreate yourself.”

295. Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up

296. “Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don’t see a different purpose for it now.”― Dorothea Tanning

297. “Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.”

298. I will get mad at you, you will be angry with me and I will feel no pain when I leave you

299. “A true masterpiece does not tell everything.“― Albert Camus

300. “Art is the meeting ground of the world inside and the world outside.” Elinor Ulman

301. The panic book

302. “Art is a line around your thoughts.” – Gustav Klimt

303. “In drawing, one must look for or suspect that there is more than is casually seen.“― George Bridgman

304. Art Therapy has no discriminatory borders

305. Termination – look to the arts to provide the patient with a mechanism to express the sense of loss (often too difficult to verbalize) as the relationship ends; also, artistic production serves as ideal transitional objects

306. “By descending down into the depths of the soul, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening other souls.”

307. “Making art, good art, is always a struggle. It can make you happy when you pull it off. There’s no better feeling. It’s beauteous. But it’s always about hard work and inspiration and sweat and good ideas.” – Damien Hirst

308. Art as Benevolence

309. What is healing through art?

310. “When you do things for their own sake, that’s when you create your best work. That’s when it’s art.“― Naval Ravikant

311. I will withdraw from you early, so that when I leave I will not miss you

312. Are artists more likely to have a mental illness?

313. “Art therapy encourages individuals to express and understand emotions, resolve issues and improve self-awareness. To express one’s self artistically can aid in the healing process by surfacing meaning. Through art there is an opportunity to connect with the unconscious which can foster increased self-awareness. Through this connection lived experience can be explored, including both positive and negative effects enabling the opportunity for healing.”

314. Art as Personal Metaphor

315. “I Felt So Shaken Up”: Woman Leaves Family Trip After Eavesdropping On Husband’s Conversation With Mother-In-Law"Lost In History": 50 Pictures That Might Change Your Perspective On The 20th Century (New Pics)

316. “Art is our one true global language. It knows no nation, it favors no race, and it acknowledges no class. It speaks to our need to reveal, heal, and transform. It transcends our ordinary lives and lets us imagine what is possible.” – Richard Kamler

317. “It is only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create.“― J. M. W. Turner

318. “The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.“― Friedrich Nietzsche

319. Wasn’t this wonderful, I’m so glad I met you, you’ve really changed my life

320. “Great art picks up where nature ends.” – Marc Chagall

321. “To be an artist is to believe in life.” – Henry Moore

322. “All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation.“― Susan Sontag

323. “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.“― Pablo Picasso

324. “The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.“― William Faulkner

325. Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures

326. An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world

327. “We share the importance of the arts, not only in society but also in building one’s self-esteem. And the kids really grasp that: They’re confident and proud of themselves and share art with the people in their lives.” ~ Agnes Gund, founder of Studio in a School

328. “In the mind of every artist there is a masterpiece.“― Kai Greene

329. “There is no word for art. We say it is to transfer something from the real to the unreal. I am an owl, and I am a happy owl. I like to make people happy and everything happy. I am the light of happiness and I am a dancing owl.“― Kenojuak Ashevak

330. “We are in a time once again where our need for the arts is growing more and more apparent. Controversy and anger and fear seem to swirl around us these days in large supply. This has happened plenty of times in our history. We have needed and sought the healing and teaching power of the arts for a long time, perhaps forever.” ~ Robert Lynch, President and CEO, Americans For The Arts

331. “All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.“― James Baldwin

332. “Awe has many important implications for our well-being. Experiencing awe can give us a sense of hope and provide a feeling of fulfillment.” ~ Shilagh Mirgain, PhD, Psychologist, University of Wisconsin Health. Read Increase Your Well-Being With Awe-Inspiring Art

333. Treatment, whether psychological or rehabilitative, is simulated and enhanced through the use of imagination

334. “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

335. Softness project

336. Words to live by collage

337. “Art was made to overcome chaos.” Don Jones.

338. “The British Association of Art Therapists defines art therapy as:

339. “Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth.“― Pablo Picasso

340. “By descending down into the depths of the soul, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening other souls.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

341. “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.” – Marc Chagall

342. Resistance – main question is the quality of the relationship

343. “Our primary task is to inspire in the patient the desire to use his discomfort rather than be abused by it.”

344. “An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.“― Charles Cooley

345. “The empowering nature of art therapy does not seek cures, it accepts and ennobles.”

346. “I do know that the process of art is a series of jolts, or perhaps I mean volts, for art is an extraordinarily faithful transmitter. Our job is to keep our receiving equipment in good working order.”

347. “The process of making art is a process of organizing chaotic emotional material into coherent, restructured product.”

348. “A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.” – Oscar Wilde

349. “Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.“― Jackson Pollock

350. Art is a language

351. “Life is full of challenges. We all have them. Art has helped me through my own deep valleys.”

352. Art as Structure and Chaos

353. “If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery. It wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.“― Michelangelo

354. “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.“― Scott Adams

355. As at therapists we have two wanting tools, ART and OURSELVES

356. “Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realising one’s sensations.”

357. “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.“― Bertolt Brecht

358. Creating mindfulness beads

359. “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

360. “I started painting as a hobby when I was little. I didn’t know I had any talent. I believe talent is just a pursued interest. Anybody can do what I do.“― Bob Ross

361. “A bone heals, a bruise fades, but art is forever.”

362. “Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.“― Anais Nin

363. “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.” – Helen Frankenthaler

364. “Painting completed my life. I lost three children and a series of other things that would have fulfilled my horrible life. My painting took the place of all of this. I think work is the best.” Frida Kahlo

365. What anxiety looks like

366. Art as Play

367. “Success is a worn down pencil.“― Robert Rauschenberg

368. “Do You Really Want That On Your Body Forever?”: 30 Of The Worst Tattoos Shared On This Online Group

369. “Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache.“― David Hockney

370. “Fine art is knowledge made visible.” – Gustave Courbet

371. “The art of healing, the art of ecstasy, the art of God-consciousness has millions of names in mystic terms. It has to do with rhythm and reality.”

372. “Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate.” – Harvey Fierstein

373. “Drawing is giving a performance; an artist is an actor who is not limited by the body, only by his ability and, perhaps, experience.“― Marc Davis

374. Art as Empowerment

375. “I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully & as carefully as you can—in some beautifully bound book. It will seem as if you were making the visions banal—but then you need to do that—then you are freed from the power of them. . . . Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church—your cathedral—the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them—then you will lose your soul—for in that book is your soul.”

376. “There is no must in art because art is free.“― Wassily Kandinsky

377. “Drawing is like making an expressive gesture, with the advantage of permanence.“― Henri Matisse

378. “AITA? I Went On Vacation With My Friend And Her Family, They Kicked Me Out So I Got My Own Room And Stayed On”Clueless Director Calls For A Meeting Over Mass Resignation After Company Cancels WFH, Employee Explains It In A Way He Would Understand

379. “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

380. “The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good.“― Stanley Kubrick

381. “Art, for example, becomes art therapy. When patients make music, it becomes music therapy. When the arts are used for therapy in this way, they are degraded to a secondary position.”

382. “He who works with his hands is a labourer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.“― Saint Francis of Assisi

383. “Participants provided saliva samples to assess cortisol levels before and after 45 minutes of art making. Participants also provided written responses about the experience at the end of the session. Results indicate that art making resulted in statistically significant lowering of cortisol levels.” ~ Journal of the American Art Therapy Association

384. “All the world knew that a maester forged his silver link when he learned the art of healing, but the world preferred to forget that men who knew how to heal also knew how to kill.”

385. “…art therapists reclaim their tradition of artist and about the complications of becoming overly clinified.”

386. “Art is too important not to share.”― Romero Britto

387. “Imagination is tapping into the subconscious in a form of open play. That is why art or music therapy, which encourages a person to take up brushes and paint or an instrument, and just express themselves, is so powerful.”

388. “The arts, as media of the imagination, are disciplines which give form and substance to our capacity to be who we are. Each artistic medium embodies the imagination in a concrete and specific way.”

389. “Expressive therapy is a disclosure of soul’s contagion. It comes upon us diamonically through the agency of imagination, who’s medicines draw from the full spectrum of soul.”

390. “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton

391. “I shut my eyes in order to see.” – Paul Gauguin

392. “Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see.” – Paul Kloee

393. “Art can permeate the very deepest part of us, where no words exist.”

394. “A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.“― Salvador Dali

395. How does an artwork empower a person?

396. “In any art you’re allowed to steal anything if you can make it better.“― Ernest Hemingway

397. “Space is the breath of art.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

398. “The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.“― Leonardo da Vinci

399. “Art is like therapy; what comes up is what comes up. It may be dark, but that's what comes up. You may want to keep some of it in a drawer... but never judge it.“― Nick Bantock

400. “Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.” – René Magritte

401. “Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.” ~ Pablo Picasso Do you have a lot of “dust” in your life? Art might be a good feather duster. We’re big proponents of utilizing the power of art and creativity for improving emotional and mental health – and we thought this quote from Picasso […]

402. “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.“― Frida Kahlo

403. “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.“― Robert Hughes

404. How does art heal trauma?

405. “Art is the greatest asset to mental health I have; it has this amazing ability to go under the radar and it goes down little pathways which are un-trodden and yet it’s still a very legitimate way of thinking and feeling and getting on with your life.” Grayson Perry

406. “Art is for healing ourselves, and everybody needs their own personal art to heal up their problems.”

407. “How you draw is a reflection of how you feel about the world. You're not capturing it, you're interpreting it.“― Juliette Aristides

408. “Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

409. Art as Hope

410. You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have

411. I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for

412. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.“― Aristotle

413. “Suffering is so real & I walk amongst so many who have no idea how much my soul is aching to be healed.”

414. “Drawing is not what one sees, but what one can make others see.“― Edgar Degas

415. “Variety of form and brilliancy of color in the object presented to patients are an actual means of recovery.” ~ Florence Nightingale

416. “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” – Edward Hopper

417. “The view of life I communicate in my pictures excludes the sordid and the ugly. I paint life as I would like it to be.”― Norman Rockwell

418. “Each time you take a good picture, you have the wonderful feeling of exhilaration ... and almost instantly, the flip side. You have this terrible, terrible anxiety that you’ve just taken your last good picture.” Sally Mann