“This man, who took no joy in the ways of his brethren — who cared not for conquest, and fretted in the field — this designer of quaint patterns — this deviser of the beautiful — who perceived in Nature about him curious curvings, as faces are seen in the fire — this dreamer apart, was the first artist.”
— James McNeill Whistler, The 'Ten O'Clock' lecture, in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1885)
“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.”
— James McNeill Whistler, The 'Ten O'Clock' lecture, in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1885)
“Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful — as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he bring forth from chaos glorious harmony.”
— James McNeill Whistler, The 'Ten O'Clock' lecture, in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1885)
“In life and in painting too, I can easily do without the dear Lord, but I can’t, suffering as I do, do without something greater than myself, which is my life, the power to create.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1888)
“[M]y great desire is to learn to make such inaccuracies, such variations, reworkings, alterations of the reality, that it might become, very well — lies if you will — but — truer than the literal truth.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1885)
“The lover is moved by the beloved object as the senses are by sensible objects; and they unite and become one and the same thing. The work is the first thing born of this union; if the thing loved is base the lover becomes base.”
— Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Richter translation)
“To express the love of two lovers through a marriage of two complementary colours, their mixture and their contrasts, the mysterious vibrations of adjacent tones. To express the thought of a forehead through the radiance of a light tone on a dark background. To express hope through some star. The ardour of a living being through the rays of a setting sun.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1888)
“If something in you yourself says ‘you aren’t a painter’ — IT’S THEN THAT YOU SHOULD PAINT, old chap, and that voice will be silenced too, but precisely because of that.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1883)
“Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that Nature is usually wrong: that is to say, the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all.”
— James McNeill Whistler, The 'Ten O'Clock' lecture, in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1885)
“I like it very much as a work of art in itself, I feel that you create colours with your words; anyway I rediscover my canvases in your article, but better than they really are — richer, more significant.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1890)
Every quote in this collection was verified
against its original public-domain source — the letter, journal, poem or treatise it
truly comes from. No internet folklore, no misattributions.
Start free to bring these voices into your daily practice.