Artist

“ But what is art in painting! Is all poetry and sentiment in a painting to be expressed by the actual handling of the colours, the process of handling and the mechanism of brushwork! Can all the poetry be contained in the objects themselves and the way they are painted? It has become the fashion of artists to say that they are painters, not artists.
Now what do they mean by this? What is a painter? A person who can handle the brush and who knows colour, or, in other words, who masters the tool of his trade. And what is an artist? The term artist is not limited to one profession. ”

“ Nowhere else in art is such a temperament revealed; never did inclination and opportunity combine to express such enjoyment. The mixture of flowers and gems and brocade, of blooming flesh and shining sea and waving groves, of youth, health, movement, desire—all this is the brightest vision that ever descended upon the soul of a painter. Happy the artist who could entertain such a vision; happy the artist who could paint it as the masterpiece I here recall is painted. ”

“ Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. ”

“ The world will see a simple rag
Become a treasure rarely known.
LINES TO A PROMISING YOUNG ARTIST. These bays be thine; and, tho’ not form’d to shine
Clear as thy colour, faultless as thy line,
Yet shall the Muse essay, in humble verse,
Thy merits, lovely Painting! to rehearse. ”

“ If the hand that paints a picture true to life and pleasing to the eye, is the hand of an artist, why is not the tongue that paints a picture true to life and pleasing to the mind's eye the tongue of an artist? ”

“ Then I would say, ‘I would like to be an artist now, that I might paint, not the care-worn countenance and the uneasy air of one seemingly out of harmony with the scene about her, but the soul that sometimes looks out from under those large lids. ”

“ The artist or the art-critic, discriminating still, even among these raw materials of human creation, derives an elaborate and subtle delight from the suggestiveness of their colours, their odours, and their fabrics—conscious all the while of wondrous and visionary evocations, wherein they take their place. ”

“ At these I look with such unalloyed delight, that I have been at moments tempted to wish that the artist had concentrated his powers on this department of art, in so high a degree does he exhibit the attributes of the master; a power of sympathy, which gives each landscape a perfectly individual character. Here the painter is merged in his theme, and these pictures affect us as parts of nature, so absorbed are we in contemplating them, so difficult is it to remember them as pictures. ”

“ If the artist be imaginative, he may depict, hovering over their several emblems, dim, shadowy forms to represent, respectively, the genius of music, of painting, of literature, each vainly, and sorrowfully because vainly, beckoning the ruffler away. ”

“ Yet all these different phases are the work of one man, spring from the temperament and the sense of colour of one artist, intelligent always, a fine and true painter in his first, a turbulent painter in his second period and, in all, a distinguished master of the technical side of his art, who has undoubtedly not yet shown us his last formula and is keeping many exquisite surprises in reserve for us. ”

“ Some fine day every artist finds himself sitting face to face with his lump of clay, with his empty canvas, with his sheet of blank paper, waiting in vain for the revelation to be made, for the Muse to descend. ”

“ I find that what your people need is not so much high imaginative art but that which hallows the vessels of everyday use. I suppose that the poet will sing and the artist will paint regardless whether the world praises or blames. ”

“ In the actual to discern the ideal, in the appearance to penetrate to the reality, without taking leave of the material to reveal the spiritual,—this is the mystery and vocation of the artist, and his achievement is art. ”

“ The light and pleasing in form and color, in design and execution, distinguish the numerous works of our artist. No living painter excels her in dignity or in the delicate taste with which she handles the pencil. ”

“ How true it is that art expressions are the mute speech of genius, and genius is but another name for inspiration. It has been said "back of the artist is art, and back of art is that which men name God." ”

“ He who paints the body alone may be an excellent craftsman, but the true artist is he who paints the beautiful body informed and irradiated by the still more lovely and fascinating spirit—he who renders the mood. ”

“ But the true artist, that is to say the man who feels, draws towards him the divine essence, is penetrated through all his pores by it, and gives a mysterious life to scenes that he spreads out upon his canvas. ”

“ Perhaps in two or three centuries an artist is born, one who in painting a portrait produces almost a living, breathing creature; and is able by his magic touch, to paint in the thoughts which flit through the brain ”

“ Every work of art springs from a definite concept held by the artist, some piece of reality clearly understood and sincerely felt, insisting on expression at his hands precisely because it affects him emotionally. ”

“ As a skilful artist examines a picture in the best light, that all its beauties may be revealed, she placed each one of her subjects in the most favorable aspect, studied her closely, searched out every fine point which might be heightened, and pondered over every defect which might be concealed. ”

“ The answer comes instinctively, unhesitatingly to all of us: this universal artist, this artistic organism which contains the whole intensified individual, is the poet. Nay: why call him poet? why reserve this supreme place of artist not of colours or sounds, but of spoken emotion, and perception, and action, for the man whose words are grouped into metrical shape? ”

“ Now this possibility of storing for later use, of increasing by combination, the impressions of beautiful things, makes art—and by art I mean all æsthetic activity, whether in the professed artist who creates or the unconscious artist who assimilates—the type of such pleasures as are within our own keeping, and makes the æsthetic life typical also of that life of the spirit in which alone we can realise any kind of human freedom. ”

“ Even thus the spirit, immersed in things of sense presented to us by the figurative arts, is still spirit, though diminished in its intellectual clearness and invested with hues not its own. To fashion that alabaster form of art with utmost skill, to make it beautiful, to render it transparent, is the artist's function. ”

“ If you should ask a dozen painters what mental qualification was most essential to an artist's success, the chances are that every man of them would reply "temperament"—in other words, genius and imagination. ”

“ The esthetic image in the dramatic form is life purified in and reprojected from the human imagination. The mystery of esthetic, like that of material creation, is accomplished. The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. ”

“ It may be, to use the figure of the artist, that the purpose is not solely the production of man, but that the variety and beauty of the natural world is an expression of the joy of the Creative Artist in his work. ”

“ From the favorable circumstances under which your studies are progressing; from the unrivalled talents of the gentleman who conducts them; and, without flattery, suffer me to add, from the early proofs of your own genius, I anticipate, in common with many of our fellow citizens, the addition of one artist to our present roll whose name shall stand high among those of American painters. ”

“ Now take the function of the artist, of the man who in stone, or music, marble, bronze, paint, or words, can express himself, and his vision of life, truly and beautifully. Can we set limit to his value? ”

“ One perceives in such states as were there revealed that the true “artist” has not always been known among his fellow human beings, moving upon the world of thought, influencing other lives by the beauty and harmony of their own natures, these seem, when viewed from the spirit, to constitute the real artists. ”

“ I have only once before in my experience come across a parallel case—that of an artist, and a very original and inspired artist like yourself; of about your own age, too. He was colour-blind, and being somehow led to suspect the fact, showed me some of his paintings. ”

“ Turn where we will throughout the volume, we find traces of beauty, tenderness, and truth; true poet's work, touched and refined by the master-hand of a real artist, who shows his genius even in trifles."—Standard. ”

“ Those who possessed his pictures were very ready to receive and admire the poems of their favourite artist, and to push them about in the fashionable and the wealthy world, as the works of the poet-painter, a title rarely obtained, so many gifts does it imply. ”

“ For this, Art is required, and the true disciples of the great artist are not his studio-imitators, but those who become like his works of art, be they plastic as in Greek days, or pictorial as in modern times; in a word, Life is Art’s best, Art’s only pupil. ”

“ The magnificent and superior artist, mature in imagination and composition, fully equipped as a painter of pictures, perhaps even of academical distinction, who turns his attention to the craft, and without any adequate practical training in it, which alone could teach its right principles, makes, and in the nature of things is bound to make, great mistakes—mistakes easily avoidable. ”

“ Our definition, then, of an artist is a person who whether by verse, prose, sculpture, painting, photography, etching, engraving, or music, raises his art to a fine art by his work, and the works of such artist alone are works of art. ”

“ The man who hollowed out an inkstand from a fuse brings it forth. His work is curious, dainty, and ornamental: bravo! A painter is there, an artist, who brings out his album; he has a hundred drawings, warm with color. ”

“ Then by degrees, perhaps, as the beauty of the tone winds itself about your imagination, you will begin to find some sentiment of beauty suggested by the girl herself.
What I wish you to understand is that an artist, who has the gift of composing tonal harmonies, employs them to express the abstract feelings or emotions that he has regarding his subject. A celebrated example is Whistler’s Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, that now hangs in the Luxembourg Gallery, in Paris. ”

“ Otherwise, the world will never trouble themselves about you, or will very soon forget you. A celebrated artist of the present day, whose name is engraved at the bottom of some of the most touching specimens of English art, once had a frame-maker call on him, who, on entering his room, exclaimed with some surprise, ‘What, are you a painter, sir?’ The other made answer, a little startled in his turn, ‘Why, didn’t you know that? ”

“ The painter also usually follows his own bent and seldom varies from marines to portraits, or from still life to landscape, and although some have run the whole gamut, the personality of the artist unconsciously translates his subjects into his own individual language. ”

“ For, you see, the one thing that marks the true artist is a clear perception and a firm, bold hand, in distinction from that imperfect mental vision and uncertain touch which give us the feeble pictures and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvas or in stone. ”

“ He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas. ”

“ The second, which relates to the mode of expressing the conception, including drawing and coloring, with all their secrets, requires more study, and here our untaught perceptions must sometimes yield to the judgment of artists. My first question, then, when I look at the work of an artist, is, What sort of a mind has this man? ”

“ The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the [164] novelist, the dramatist, if their work is to be other than ephemeral, need an atmosphere of repose and quietude wherein the mind can work and fashion those ideas which are to be given material expression free from all distracting and disturbing influences. Where can the aspiring artist, under modern conditions of life, find such a haven of rest? ”

“ Throughout this book the word artist is used, not in the narrow sense popular in America, as a man who paints pictures and illustrates magazines; but in its broad{8} sense, as one who represents life imaginatively by any device, whether picture or statue or poem or song or symphony or opera or drama or novel. ”

“ Be the artist man or woman, and be their art expressed in sculpture or painting, the dominant element in personality will be the dominant trend in their art. That fact accounts for the variety in taste, ability and appreciation. We realize that fact the more we study "one man shows." ”

“ Now, that was the remark of an artist in human affairs, and may provoke a number of analogies. What is in the making is not a public spectacle. It ought to be considered very outrageous, on the death of a painter or a poet, to exhibit those rough first drafts, which he, living, had the acumen to conceal. ”