Art Quotes

Do not imitate one another's style. If you do, so far as your art is concerned you will be called a grandson, rather than the son of Nature. It is always best to have recourse to nature, which is replete with such abundance of objects, than to the productions of other masters, who learnt everything from her.

He only moves toward the perfection of his art whose criticism surpasses his achievement.

Sculpture, a very noble art, is one that does not in the execution require the same supreme ingenuity as the art of painting, since in two most important and difficult particulars, in foreshortening and in light and shade... the painter has to invent a process, [whereas] sculpture is helped by nature.

The vivacity and brightness of colors in a landscape will never bear any comparison with a landscape in nature when it is illumined by the sun, unless the painting is placed in such a position that it will receive the same light from the sun as does the landscape.

Surely when a man is painting a picture he ought not refuse to hear any man's opinion... Since men are able to form a true judgement as to the works of nature, how much more does it behoove us to admit that they are able to judge our faults.

He who despises painting has no love for the philosophy in nature.

Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to the horse, the rudder to a ship.

The color of the object illuminated partakes of the color of that which illuminates it.

How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.

Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.

The merit of painting lies in the exactness of reproduction. Painting is a science and all sciences are based on mathematics. No human enquiry can be a science unless it pursues its path through mathematical exposition and demonstration.

The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.

What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art.

If the painter wishes to see beauties that charm him, it lies in his power to create them, and if he wishes to see monstrosities that are frightful, ridiculous, or truly pitiable, he is lord and God thereof.

And you who wish to represent by words the form of man and all the aspects of his membrification, relinquish that idea. For the more minutely you describe the more you will confine the mind of the reader, and the more you will keep him from the knowledge of the thing described. And so it is necessary to draw and to describe.

The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard: but if he will apply himself to learn from the objects of nature he will produce good results. This we see was the case with the painters who came after the time of the Romans, for they continually imitated each other, and from age to age their art steadily declined.

The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

The young man should first learn perspective, then the proportions of objects. Next, copy work after the hand of a good master, to gain the habit of drawing parts of the body well; and then to work from nature, to confirm the lessons learned.