"I would hardly call myself an artist in that sense; I doodle, I draw, I'm not a trained artist, I couldn't sit down and do an accurate portrait of anyone"
About this Quote
Rene Auberjonois draws a careful line between playful creativity and professional mastery. By calling himself a doodler who cannot produce an accurate portrait, he signals that when people say artist, they often mean a trained visual practitioner with command of proportion, likeness, and technique. The phrase in that sense narrows the field: he is not rejecting artistry altogether, but distinguishing the particular discipline of fine art from the casual, exploratory marks he enjoys making.
Known primarily for his work on stage and screen, he was indisputably an artist in the performing sense. That history makes his modesty here intentional rather than self-effacing to a fault. He resists the easy conflation of fame with expertise across mediums. In an era when celebrity side projects are often celebrated out of proportion to their craft, he acknowledges the rigor of visual training and declines a title he feels he has not earned.
His words also prod at the way audiences measure artistic value. Portrait accuracy has long been a shorthand for technical virtuosity, a visible benchmark that reassures viewers: the artist can make the eye believe. Yet creativity thrives beyond verisimilitude. Doodling is the art of spontaneity, a form of thinking on paper; its virtue is curiosity, not polish. In that sense his drawing practice parallels improvisation in acting, where loose exploration can lead to truth, even if it is not photorealistic.
There is a humane permission in this stance. He allows himself the pleasure of making without claiming mastery, modeling a way to engage with a craft as an amateur while honoring those who devote their lives to it. The remark becomes a small lesson in artistic humility and precision of language: the title artist can describe many kinds of work, but context matters. One can be accomplished in one art and joyfully untrained in another, and both pursuits have value.
Known primarily for his work on stage and screen, he was indisputably an artist in the performing sense. That history makes his modesty here intentional rather than self-effacing to a fault. He resists the easy conflation of fame with expertise across mediums. In an era when celebrity side projects are often celebrated out of proportion to their craft, he acknowledges the rigor of visual training and declines a title he feels he has not earned.
His words also prod at the way audiences measure artistic value. Portrait accuracy has long been a shorthand for technical virtuosity, a visible benchmark that reassures viewers: the artist can make the eye believe. Yet creativity thrives beyond verisimilitude. Doodling is the art of spontaneity, a form of thinking on paper; its virtue is curiosity, not polish. In that sense his drawing practice parallels improvisation in acting, where loose exploration can lead to truth, even if it is not photorealistic.
There is a humane permission in this stance. He allows himself the pleasure of making without claiming mastery, modeling a way to engage with a craft as an amateur while honoring those who devote their lives to it. The remark becomes a small lesson in artistic humility and precision of language: the title artist can describe many kinds of work, but context matters. One can be accomplished in one art and joyfully untrained in another, and both pursuits have value.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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