Master artist

“ 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. ”

“ Thus I have ventured to give my opinion of what appears to me the true and only method by which an artist makes himself master of his profession; which I hold ought to be one continued course of imitation, that is not to cease but with his life. ”

“ The master-artist, to whose exquisite touch these compositions owe their excuse for being, possessed beyond his contemporaries the liberal faculty which endowed some of the great workmen of the past: the double gift upon which the poets, sculptors, and painters of the golden age, before the era of the specialists, were wont to plume themselves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is just the little difference between the good and the best that makes the difference between the artist and the artisan. It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that make the master's fame. ”

“ But the poet is the supreme artist, for he is the master of colour and of form, and the real musician besides, and is lord over all life and all arts; ”

“ Here is your great artist, your great exceptional mind groping in the darknesses beneath the surface of life, half apprehending strange elusive things in those profundities, and striving—striving sometimes to the utmost verge of human endeavour—to give that strange unsuspected mystery expression, to shape it, to shadow it in form and wonder of colour, in beautiful rhythms, in phantasies of narrative, in gracious and glowing words. So much in its essential and precious degree is art. Think of what the world must be in the wider vision of the great artist. ”

“ Whether the medium be the painter's color, the musician's tones, or the poet's words, the purpose of the representation is fulfilled in so far as the work expresses the emotion which the artist has felt in the presence of this spectacle. He, the artist, more than I or another, has thrilled to its mystery, its tumult, its power. It is this effect, received as a unity of impression, that he wants to communicate. This power of the object over him, and consequently the content of his work, is beauty. ”

“ Thus, at the mere sight of even a second-rate work, so that it suffice to kindle that divine spark, the hall-mark of genius, in his soul, the truly great artist will suddenly grasp his idea, and fathom the very depths of his art in one swift piercing glance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The idea is that of an artist, pure, simple, and direct in his work, who should excel equally in all the arts, and show—even though his work be an exception to all rules—the consummate success of such a course. ”

“ The painter had poured out his soul upon that angelic countenance and perfect figure.
"It is my ideal," said the artist, "and, by the mystic whisper of the heart, by the bright teaching of the star that rules my destiny, by the forbidden lore of which I have drank deeply, I know that the ideal of each mind is the reflex of the actual, and with the true artist fancy is existence!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ The significant thing about such influences, where they are relevant, is what the artists did with them. Materials and techniques, varying with different periods, may have provided common limiting conditions, class and personal associations may have furnished the ideals and allegiances determining the selection of themes, but what marks the unique achievement of the great artist is his individual craftsmanship, his sensibility, insight, and power to make us see things in a fresh light. ”

“ Of all artists, the painter is the favourite with the public. To most of them, artist means painter.... And yet, thinking it over, it’s not so hard to understand this favouritism. The painter is apt to be more ordinary, more normal, more human, than the poet or the musician. ”

“ Every operation in the arts should be perfect. It has to be so in most arts, from violin-playing to circus-riding, before the artist dare make his bow to the public.
Placing on one side the question of the higher grades of art which depend upon special talent or genius—the great qualities of imagination, composition, form and colour, which belong to mastership—I would now, in this book, intended for students, dwell upon those minor things, the doing of which well or ill depends only upon good-will, patience, and industry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This concealment of all artifice, this artlessness and spontaneity of appearance, is one of the greatest qualities in a composition, any analysis of which is futile. It is what occasionally gives to the work of the unlettered genius so great a charm. But the artist in whom the true spark has not been quenched by worldly success or other enervating influence, keeps the secret of this freshness right on, the culture of his student days being used only to give it splendour of expression, but never to stifle or suppress its native charm. ”

“ Is our artist a genre painter: then does his mind see small things to delight in them, or to delight us—if this, he is our servitor or little better,—does he go at the whole thing with the sincerity of an artistic purpose and somewhere place a veritable touch of genius, or only represent one item after another until the whole catalogue of items is complete, careful that he leave behind no just cause for reproach? Has the man dignified his subject and raised it to something above imitative art, or does he clearly state in his treatment of it that imitation is the end of art? ”

“ Here, by the way, the deceased critic might have convinced himself once again of the extravagance of the so-called theory of 'art for art's sake.' Every artist has his definite task, his life's work, to which he devotes all his forces. ”

“ We may test a man's merit as a painter by his ability to paint. As an artist his greatness is to be judged with reference to the greatness of his ideas; and in his capacity as artist his technical skill derives its value from the measure in which it is adequate to their expression. In the case of an accomplished pianist or violinist we take his proficiency of technique for granted, and we ask, What, with all this power of expression at his command, has he to say? In his rendering of the composer's work what has he of his own to contribute by way of interpretation? ”

“ 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." ”

“ The interest the painter takes in his task flatters you. And when the sittings are over, and you behold yourself hanging on your own wall, looking as it you could direct kingdoms or lead armies, you feel grateful to the artist. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The artist—the true artist—must look beneath the exterior. It is his gift—his proudest, but often a melancholy one—to see the inmost soul, and, by a power indefinable even to himself, to make it glow or darken upon the canvas, in glances that express the thought and sentiment of years. ”

“ The object of the painter, being the representation of emotion in all the varied situations which life produces, it follows, that every thing in his picture should be in unison with the predominant expression which he wishes it to bear; that the composition should be as simple as is consistent with the developement of this expression; and the colouring such as accords with the character by which this emotion is distinguished. It is here that the genius of the artist is principally to be displayed, in the selection of such figures as suit the general impression which the whole is to produce ”

“ For that power, which enables the Artist to conceive his subject with dignity, may be said to belong to general education; and is as much the Genius of a Poet, or the professor of any other liberal Art, or even a good critic in any of those arts, as of a Painter. ”

“ Meanwhile, the painter's poetry is quite lost to him—the amazing invention that shall have put form and colour into such perfect harmony, that exquisiteness is the result, he is without understanding—the nobility of thought, that shall have given the artist's (p. 148) dignity to the whole, says to him absolutely nothing. ”

“ The reproduction of already existing forms, with no modification by the individual workman, is not art. So, for example, only that painter is an artist who adds to his representation of the visible world some new attribute or quality born of his own spirit Primitive artisan, craftsman, painter, each creates in that he reveals and makes actual some part, which before was but potential, of the all-embracing life.
As the artist, then, wins new reaches of experience and brings them into unity, he reveals new beauty, new to men yet world-old. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So all of us possess genius, though few of us are artists.”
Next I read Alfred’s paper:
“On Sunday, the 22d, we discussed the subject of art. We said that for a thing to be high art it must be pleasing to the eye or ear, and complete in itself; that is, the artist or composer must so construct his work that it will fully express some idea. In painting a picture an artist may choose to convey some gruesome idea, and do so perfectly, but that will not be high art, because it will be displeasing to the eye. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the musician reads the page of a score at a glance, as the author comprehends the essence of a book by a flash of intelligence, as the painter sees at a glance the points and lines and hues of a landscape, whilst the ordinary man plods through the musical composition note by note, the book page by page, the landscape detail by detail, so the true artist, whether poet, painter, or dramatist, sees human nature, penetrating its disguises and embracing all its force and weakness by that insight which is within him. ”

“ But, while the laws upon which Art rests may be fixed and certain, to find their true realisation they must be touched by the imagination into such beauty that they will seem an exception, each one of them. Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the æsthetic critic can understand it. To the great poet, there is only one method of music—his own. To the great painter, there is only one manner of painting—that which he himself employs. ”

“ 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 playwright cannot address the audience save through the play, the poet speaks only through his poetry, the painter through his pictures, the sculptor through the forms of his creation. Seldom is an artist gifted with more than one tongue, and that tongue is his art. How, then, can artists interpret the work of artists? How can the painter, who is dumb save with his brush, or the sculptor, who is mute save with his clay and chisel, tell the world anything about the work of others? ”

“ The artist’s sympathetic imagination and extraordinary reverence, not for the saint-idea in his theme but for humanity in its relation to art, have informed the technique with a noble sympathy, grand imagination and a sovereign reverence. For the point, difficult to put into words, is that technique such as this, while it is magnificent as mere representation, achieves the higher quality of expression, and the measure of the latter is the quality of the artist’s conception not only of his subject but even more of his art, as one of the noble mediums of expression. ”