The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.
James McNeill Whistler Quotes
If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.
To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.
I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.
If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.
Had silicon been a gas, I would have been a major general. (On failing chemistry at West Point)
Art happens no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy, and coarse farce.
I am not arguing with you – I am telling you.
