Robert Schumann Art Quotations

Nature best teaches how to pray, and how to reverence all the gifts the Almighty has given us. She is like a vast outspread handkerchief, embroidered with God's eternal name, on which we may dry alike our tears of sorrow and of joy; she turns weeping into ecstasy, and fills our hearts with speechless, quiet reverence and resignation.

My heart pounds sickeningly and I turn pale... I often feel as if I were dead... I seem to be losing my mind.

Confidence and courage are special skills to the art ... Within the four walls of his study, the artist should be modest, work diligently and conscientiously. While for the public, he'll show himself audacious, yes even into cheerful boldness. And so a new public's darling has arisen.

Mendelssohn I consider the first musician of the day; I doff my hat to him as my superior. He plays with everything, especially with the grouping of the instruments in the orchestra, but with such ease, delicacy and art, with such mastery throughout.

Music - so different from painting - is the art which we enjoy most in company with others. A symphony, presented in a room with one other listener, would please him but little.

Think it a vile habit to alter works of good composers, to omit parts of them, or to insert new-fashioned ornaments. This is the greatest insult you can offer to Art.

It is music's lofty mission to shed light on the depths of the human heart

The aesthetic principle is the same in every art, only the material differs.

Without enthusiasm nothing great can be effected in art.

Nothing right can be accomplished in art without enthusiasm.

Can that which has cost the artist days, weeks, months and even years of reflection be understood in a flash by a dilettante?

Send light to the dark hearts of men, that is the duty the artist.

Art was not created as a way to riches. Strive to become a true artist; all else will take care of itself.

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.