Alphonse Mucha, Zodiac, 1869
Some quotes I liked from this book I flipped through in Tsutaya bookstore.
"My stay in Paris, the walks I took, the monuments and museums visited, awakened my artistic sensitivity. No academic education could have inspired me so strongly and lastingly."
– Victor Horta, 1939
"The more materialistic science becomes, the more angels shall I paint. Their wings are my protest in favour of the immortality of the soul."
– Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1881
"Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul."
– Edvard Munch, ca. 1898
"All humanity inspires me. Every passerby is my unconscious sitter; and as strange as it may seem, I really draw folk as I see them"
– Aubrey Beardsley, 1894
"Reason informed by emotion - expressed in beauty - elevated by earnestness - lightened by humour - that is the ideal that should guide all artists."
– Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1902
"To every age its art, to every art its freedom.
– Motto above the door of the Secession Building, 1898
"Simplicity lies not in omission, but in synthesis."
– Koloman Moser, 1905
"It is upon us architects that falls..the duty of determining, by our art, not only artistic, but also the civilising and scientific evolution of our time."
– Hector Guimard, 1902
"Only that which is practical can be beautiful"
– Otto Wagner, 1896
"The aim of my work: the study of nature, the love of nature's art, and the need to express what one feels in one's heart."
– Émile Gallé, 1884-89
"Design is not about decorating functional forms - it is about creating forms that accord with the character of the object and that show new technologies to advantage."
– Peter Behrens, ca. 1907
"My lifelong quest has always been in pursuit of beauty."
– Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1916
"Art is the Flower. Life is the Green Leaf. Let every artist strive to make his flower a beautiful living thing, something that will convince the world that...there are things more precious, more beautiful, more lasting than life itself."
– Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1902
"There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners."
– Antoni GaudĂ, ca. 1892
"Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist, the only notable thing - ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do."
– Gustav Klimt, date unknown
"Let the designer lean upon the staff of the line - line determinative, line emphatic, line delicate, line expressive, line controlling and uniting."
– Walter Crane, 1892
"I have never seen a black and white artist with a more stupendous imagination."
– Lord Dunsany, 1905