“Just as iron rusts unless it is used, and water putrifies or, in cold, turns to ice, so our intellect spoils unless it is kept in use.”
— Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Richter translation)
“[T]he greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one.”
— John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Volume 3 (1856)
“It’s the study of the figure that teaches one to grasp the essential and to simplify.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1889)
“The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.”
— Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Richter translation)
“Seemingly there’s nothing simpler than painting peasants or rag-pickers and other labourers but — no subjects in painting are as difficult as those everyday figures!”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1885)
“The first great mistake that people make in the matter, is the supposition that they must see a thing if it be before their eyes.”
— John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Volume 1 (1843)
“The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature.”
— Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Richter translation)
“Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1882)
“It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual, — that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood”
— John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Volume 1 (1843)
“Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.”
— Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Richter translation)
“Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1882)
“For my part I can’t understand that not everyone sees and feels it — after all, nature or God does it for everyone who has eyes and ears and a heart to perceive.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1882)
The Salon library
This is today’s sample of twelve. The whole collection is in the Salon.
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truly comes from. No internet folklore, no misattributions.
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