Susan Vreeland quotes

You know, bicycling isn't just a matter of balance," I said. "it's a matter of faith. You can keep upright only by moving forward. You have to have your eyes on the goal, not the ground. I'm going to call that the Bicyclist's Philosophy of Life. (Susan Vreeland)
To me, art begets art. Painting feeds the eye just as poetry feeds the ear, which is to say that both feed the soul. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Art history looks at art works and the people who have created them. View quote
Susan Vreeland
For a century, everyone assumed that the iconic Tiffany lamps were conceived and designed by that American master of stained glass. Not so! It was a woman! View quote
Susan Vreeland
When I was nine, my great grandfather, a landscape painter, taught me to mix colors. With his strong hand surrounding my small one, he guided the brush until a calla lily appeared as if by magic on a page of textured watercolor paper. View quote
Susan Vreeland
There is so much strife and tension in the world that I find the silent world of paintings from the past both hopeful and healing. View quote
Susan Vreeland
I pored over art books and absorbed the placidness of Monet's garden, the sparkling color of the Impressionists, the strength and solidity of Michelangelo's figures showing the titanic power of humans at one with God, Jan Vermeer's serene Dutch women bathed in gorgeous honey-colored light... My conviction grew that art was stronger than death. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Each time we enter imaginatively into the life of another, it's a small step upwards in the elevation of the human race. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Where there is no human connection, there is no compassion. Without compassion, then community, commitment, loving-kindness, human understanding, and peace all shrivel. Individuals become isolated, the isolated turn cruel, and the tragic hovers in the forms of domestic and civil violence. Art and literature are antidotes to that. View quote
Susan Vreeland
It was only after I began to write fiction that I found a way to connect with painting. View quote
Susan Vreeland
I write about art out of gratitude to painters for the joy and spiritual uplift they have given me. Painters interpret for us the visual glories of God and, in this way, bring us closer to Him. (Susan Vreeland)
I wanted to keep a Gothic cathedral alive in my heart. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Writers have to be observant. Every nuance, every inflection in a voice, the quality of air, even - they all get mixed up in this soup of the story developing in our minds. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Landscape is more than flat land covered by floodwater, the seeping of peat bogs, a river of liquid pewter viewed from a sentry tower. It's an influence on what a person values, what she is willing to sacrifice or argue for. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Archival and published history does not always record personal relationships of historical figures, so characters must be invented to allow the subject to reveal their interior realm through intimate interaction. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Whatever it is that can help to bring God close is something to be revered. View quote
Susan Vreeland
The idea of being close to where pigments were mined - that's the first thing in making a painting, getting the material. And what's the last thing you do in making a painting? You put a frame around it. View quote
Susan Vreeland
I could say diamonds are a girl's best friend, and that never changes. But the taste for art did change. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Two of my grandfathers had been artists, lifelong oil painters, so I was exposed to art very young. I've always been interested in it, although I never pursued it as a career or even as an avocation. View quote
Susan Vreeland
When I see Tiffany windows in churches across the United States, I get a sense of spiritual upliftment from that. View quote
Susan Vreeland
I would like to bring people who have never been to a museum into a museum. And I would like to bring museum goers into libraries. I think there ought to be this cross-fertilization. (Susan Vreeland)
The gift art gives us is that instead of seeing only our own world, we see into other times, which offers a window into other cultures and sensibilities. View quote
Susan Vreeland
Color has always been important to me, ever since my first deluxe box of Crayolas. View quote
Susan Vreeland
I absorbed as many Impressionist paintings as I could, in Parisian museums and in many museums in the United States and in books, looking for clues to architecture, clothing, settings. View quote
Susan Vreeland
The value of writing about art is its effect on the imagination. Paintings allow us to inhabit another culture, place, and time period, and address the issues of those time periods that resonate with our own time. View quote
Susan Vreeland