Gerhard Richter Quotes

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

Art is about expressing the true nature of the human spirit in whatever way one wishes to express it. If it is honest, it is beautiful. If it is not honest, it is obvious.

Fashion, which often seems to be on a path to be bigger, more Instagram-ready, can also achieve its best through sincerity.

Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.

Do not imitate one another's style. If you do, so far as your art is concerned you will be called a grandson, rather than the son of Nature.

Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

I learned to embrace my individuality, and if that meant writing a song on one chord over and over again, then that's what I do.

Art is maybe a subversive activity. There is a certain rebellion when you are an artist at heart, even if only in the art of living.

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

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

For me, fashion is not about reality.

Every song, every form of art, clothing, shoes, it has to be special.

Style? I have no style.

As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.

It's really easy to project this whole ideology of what being an artiste is, and I'm just not down with intellectualizing it. I just think, if you feel like doing something, then do it.

It can be frightening to turn your back on what others think is right. But I'm not the same as a lot of people - I'm quite artistic and quite eccentric sometimes. If you honour that, you fit into yourself better - and people accept you for what you are.

I love fashion as an art; I love fashion as costume, as a character. I don't like dictates and the phoniness of appearance.

As long as you're true to you, you believe it and you make others believe it, then what you're doing is just art. If you give everybody a blank canvas and some paint, not everybody's picture is going to be exactly the same, but it's still art. I just do what I do.

I'd hate it if everyone in the world liked me, my music and what I wore. It'd make it boring, and I wouldn't have anything to work towards. It's not to everyone's taste, but I can only be me.

There's room for the Gap, but the joy of dressing is an art.

Being honest is my job. That's what music is for me.

I don't want to get myself in trouble - and I don't think I'm super important or anything - but I think it's so funny that when you look at the business and the way that people make decisions in their lives, whether they're in art or music or they're in industry, they forget that being unique is the answer.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.