Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Less coin, less care.
Nothing is denied to well-directed labor.
Certainly, nothing can be more simple than monotony.
A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.
A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.
The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.
Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.
Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labour.
Whatever trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye.
It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.
Common observation and a plain understanding is the source of all art.
Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.
Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung round with thoughts?
Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.
The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose
There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.
Nothing can come of nothing; he who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations.
Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid and works its effect, itself unseen.
An eye critically nice can only be formed by observing well-colored pictures with attention.
It is vain for painters... to endeavour to invent without materials on which the mind may work.
The greatest man is he who forms the taste of a nation; the next greatest is he who corrupts it.
There can be no doubt but that he who has the most materials has the greatest means of invention.
Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work.
Reform is a work of time; a national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once.
A passion for his art, and an eager desire to excel, will more than supply an artist with the place of method.
The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it.
If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.
If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.
A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.
Style in painting is the same as in writing; a power over materials, whether words or colors, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.
I can recommend nothing better... than that you endeavor to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others.
All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master.
It is impossible that anything will be well understood or well done that is taken into a reluctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand.
In portraits, the grace and, we may add, the likeness consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact similitude of every feature.
The art of seeing nature, or, in other words, the art of using models, is in reality the great object, the point to which all our studies are directed.
The young mind is pliable and imitates, but in more advanced states grows rigid and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression.
What has pleased and continues to please, is likely to please again; hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immovable foundation they must ever stand.
And he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly.
While I recommend studying the art from artists, Nature is and must be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible, and from which all excellences must originally flow.
The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.
Perhaps blue, red, and yellow strike the mind more forcibly from there not being any great union between them, as martial music, which is intended to rouse the nobler passions.
Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are put of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.
Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory; nothing can come of nothing.
Invention strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory; nothing can come from nothing.
The distinct blue, red, and yellow colors... though they have not the kind of harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and transparent colors, have the effect of grandeur.
The great end of all arts is to make an impression on the imagination and the feeling. The imitation of nature frequently does this. Sometimes it fails and something else succeeds.
The great use of copying, if it be at all useful, should seem to be in learning color; yet even coloring will never be perfectly attained by servilely copying the model before you.
However minutely labored the picture may be in the detail, the whole will have a false and even an unfinished appearance, at whatever distance, or in whatever light it can be shown.