Constantin Brancusi Quotes

Nothing can grow under big trees.

Whoever does not detach himself from the ego never attains the Absolute and never deciphers life.

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible.

The work of art expresses precisely those things which do not die. It must do so, however, in a form that bears witness to the artist’s own era.

What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things… it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface.

Don’t look for obscure formulas or mystery in my work. It is pure joy that I offer you. Look at my sculptures until you see them. Those closest to God have seen them.

What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things.

Simplicity is complexity resolved

Why talk about sculpture when I can photograph it?

I refused [to study under Rodin] because nothing grows under large trees.

Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.

When you see a fish you don’t think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water… If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirit.

Why write [about my art]? Why not just show the photographs?

I ground matter to find the continuous line. And when I realized I could not find it, I stopped, as if an unseen someone had slapped my hands.

Simplicity is not an objective in art, but one achieves simplicity despite one’s self by entering into the real sense of things.

To see far is one thing, going there is another.

Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree.

Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them.