Great Throughts Treasury

"Paint like a fiend when the idea possesses you."

"Paint what you feel. Paint what you see. Paint what is real to you."

"Pictures tell the story of actual impulse in the artist?or the lack of it."

"Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. A worker or painter should enjoy his work, else the observer will not enjoy it."

"Reality is obtained not by imitation, but by producing the sense of nature."

"Realize that a drawing is not a copy. It is a construction in very different materials. A drawing is an invention."

"Renoir had not only a great interest in human character, in human feeling, but had also a great love for the people he painted."

"Self-acquaintance is a rare condition."

"Self-education only produces expressions of self."

"Someone has defined a work of art as a thing beautifully done. I like it better if we cut away the adverb and preserve the word done, and let it stand alone in its fullest meaning. Things are not done beautifully. The beauty is an integral part of their being done."

"Strokes carry a message whether you will it or not. The stroke is just like the artist at the time he makes it. All the certainties, all the uncertainties, all the bigness of his spirit and the littlenesses are in it."

"Students work in schools making life studies for years, win prizes for life studies and find in the end that they know practically nothing of the human figure. They have acquired the ability to copy."

"The artist should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express."

"The artist should have a powerful will. He should be powerfully possessed by one idea."

"The effect of brilliancy is to be obtained principally from the oppositions of cool colors with warm colors, and the opposition of grave colors with bright colors. If all the colors are bright there is no brightness."

"The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation."

"The good thing about painting from memory is that so much is forgotten."

"The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art. He needs no one to give him an 'Art Education'; he is already qualified. He needs but to see pictures with his active mind, look into them for the things that belong to him, and he will find soon enough in himself an art connoisseur and an art lover of the first order."

"The model is not to be copied, but to be realized."

"The more simply you see, the more simply you will render. People see too much, scatteringly."

"The most vital things in the look of a landscape endure only for a moment. Work should be done from memory; memory of that vital moment."

"The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable."

"The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. In such moments activity is inevitable, and whether this activity is with brush, pen, chisel, or tongue, its result is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state."

"The only sensible way to regard the art life is that it is a privilege you are willing to pay for.... You may cite honors and attentions and even money paid, but I would have you note that these were paid a long time after the creator had gone through his struggles."

"The pernicious influence of the prize and medal giving in art is so great that it should be stopped. History proves that juries in art have been generally wrong."

"The pictures which do not represent an intense interest cannot expect to create an intense interest."

"The pursuit of happiness ... is the greatest feat man has to accomplish."

"The real artist's work is a surprise to himself."

"The reason for the survival of the award system is purely commercial."

"The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook."

"The technique of a little individuality will be a little technique, however scrupulously elaborated it may be."

"The work of the art student is no light matter. Few have the courage and stamina to see it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways. We like sympathy and we like to be in company. It is easier than going it alone. But alone one gets acquainted with himself, grows up and on, not stopping with the crowd. It costs to do this. If you succeed somewhat you may have to pay for it as well as enjoy it all your life."

"The world will see many fashions of art and most of the world will follow the fashions and make none. These cults - these 'movements' - are absolutely necessary, or at any rate their causes are, for somewhere in their centres are the ones who bear the Idea, the ones who have questioned, 'But what do I think?' and 'How shall I say it best?'"

"There are forms that can only be seen when you are near a painting, others only appear when you are far away."

"There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it."

"There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. If one could but recall his vision by some sort of sign. It was in this hope that the arts were invented. Sign-posts on the way to what may be. Sign-posts toward greater knowledge."

"There are people who buy pictures because they were difficult to do, and are done. Such pictures are often only a record of pain and dull perseverance. Great works of art should look as though they were made in joy. Real joy is a tremendous activity, dull drudgery is nothing to it."

"There are pictures that manifest education and there are pictures that manifest love."

"There has never been a painting that was more beautiful than nature. The model does not unfold herself to you, you must rise to her. She should be the inspiration for your painting. No man has ever over-appreciated a human being."

"There is no art without contemplation."

"There is nothing in all the world more beautiful or significant of the laws of the universe than the nude human body."

"There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land."

"There is weakness in pretending to know more than you know or in stating less than you know."

"Things should all be moving toward the expression of a great idea."

"Those who cannot begin do not finish."

"Those who express even a little of themselves never become old-fashioned."

"Through art mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. They are the bonds of a great Brotherhood. Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space cannot separate them. The Brotherhood is powerful. It has many members. They are of all places and of all times. The members do not die. One is member to the degree that he can be member, no more, no less. And that part of him that is of the Brotherhood does not die. The work of the Brotherhood does not deal with surface events. Institutions on the world surface can rise and become powerful and they can destroy each other. Statesmen can put patch upon patch to make things continue to stand still. No matter what may happen on the surface the Brotherhood goes steadily on. It is the evolution of man. Let the surface destroy itself, the Brotherhood will start it again. For in all cases, no matter how strong the surface institutions become, no matter what laws may be laid down, what patches may be made, all change that is real is due to the Brotherhood."

"To award prizes is to attempt to control the course of another man?s work. It is a bid to have him do what you will approve. It affects not only the one who wins the award, but all those who in any measure strive for it."

"To be free, to be happy and to be fruitful, can only be attained through sacrifice of many common but overestimated things."

"To paint is to know how to put nothing on canvas, and have it look like something when you stand back."