Great Throughts Treasury

"It requires the nicest judgment to dispose the drapery so that the folds shall have an easy communication, and gracefully follow each other with such natural negligence as to look like the effect of chance, and at the same time show the figure under it to the greatest advantage."

"Nothing comes from 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 is denied to well-directed labor; nothing is ever to be attained without it."

"Martial music has sudden and strongly marked transitions from one note to another which that style of music requires; while in that which is intended to move the softer passions, the notes imperceptibly melt into one another."

"Let me recommend to you not to have too great dependence on your practice or memory, however strong those impressions may have been which are there deposited. They are forever wearing out, and will be at least obliterated, unless they are continually refreshed and repaired."

"No art can be grafted with success on another art. For though they all profess the same origin, and to proceed from the same stock, yet each has its own peculiar modes both of imitating nature and of deviating from it... The deviation, more especially, will not bear transplantation to another soil."

"Nothing can be made of nothing; he who has laid up no material can produce no combination."

"One inconvenience... may attend bold and arduous attempts: frequent failure may discourage. This evil, however, is not more pernicious than the slow proficiency which is the natural consequence of too easy tasks."

"Our hearts, frequently warmed by the contact of those whom we wish to resemble, will undoubtedly catch something of their way of thinking; and we shall receive in our own bosoms some radiation at least of their fire and splendor."

"Our studies will be forever, in a very great degree, under the direction of chance; like travelers, we must take what we can get, and when we can get it – whether it is or is not administered to us in the most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or at the exact minute when we would wish to have it."

"Our minds should be habituated to the contemplation of excellence."

"Raphael and Titian seem to have looked at Nature for different purposes; they both had the power of extending their view to the whole; but one looked only for the general effect as produced by form, the other as produced by color."

"Reform is a work of time; a national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once."

"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..."

"Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much"

"Reformation is a work of time. A national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once; we must yield a little to the prepossession which has taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring people to adopt what would offend them if endeavored to be introduced by violence."

"Style in painting is the same as in writing,--a power over materials, whether words or colors, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed."

"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 general ideas which are expressed in sketches, correspond very well to the art often used in poetry... every reader making out the detail according to his own particular imagination... but a painter, when he represents Eve on canvas, is obliged to give a determined form, and his own idea of beauty distinctly expressed."

"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 first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, a general preparation for whatever species of the art the student may afterwards choose for his more particular application. The power of drawing, modeling, and using colors is very properly called the language of the art."

"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 style stands alone, and does not require, perhaps does not as well admit, any addition from inferior beauties. The ornamental style also possesses its own peculiar merit: however, though the union of the two may make a sort of composite style, yet that style is likely to be more imperfect than either of those which go to its composition."

"The great events of Greek and Roman fable and history, which early education and the usual course of reading have made familiar and interesting to all Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of ordinary life in any country."

"The greatest man is he who forms the taste of a nation; the next greatest is he who corrupts it"

"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."

"The human face is my landscape."

"The real character of a man is found out by his amusements."

"The spectator, as he walks the gallery, will stop, or pass along. To give a general air of grandeur at first view, all trifling, or artful play of little lights, or an attention to a variety of tints is to be avoided; a quietness and simplicity must reign over the whole work, to which a breadth of uniform and simple color will very much contribute."

"The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it."

"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."

"The true test of all the arts is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind."

"The young mind is naturally pliable and imitative, but in a more advanced state it grows rigid, and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression."

"The works, whether of poets, painters, moralists, or historians, which are built upon general nature, live forever; while those which depend for their existence on particular customs and habits, a partial view of nature, or the fluctuation of fashion, can only be coeval with that which first raised them from obscurity."

"Though it be allowed that elaborate harmony of coloring, a brilliancy of tints, a soft and gradual transition from one to another, present not to the eye what an harmonious concert of music does to the ear; it must be remembered that painting is not merely a gratification of sight."

"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."

"There can be no doubt but that he who has the most materials has the greatest means of invention..."

"Those who are not conversant in works of art are often surprised at the high value set by connoisseurs on drawings which appear careless, and in every respect unfinished; but they are truly valuable... they give the idea of a whole."

"Those who, either from their own engagements and hurry of business, or from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out of themselves, as far as my experience and observation reach, have from that time not only ceased to advance, and improve in their performances, but have gone backward. They may be compared to men who have lived upon their principal, till they are reduced to beggary, and left without resources."

"Though color may appear at first a part of painting merely mechanical, yet it still has its rules, and those grounded upon that presiding principle which regulates both the great and the little in the study of a painter."

"Whatever trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye."

"Whoever has so far formed his taste as to be able to relish and feel the beauties of the great masters, has gone a great way in his study."

"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."

"We should, to the last moment of our lives, continue a settled intercourse with all the true examples of grandeur."

"You are never to lose sight of nature; the instant you do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of every gust of fashion, without knowing or seeing the point to which you ought to steer."

"Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work."