A mountain seen in the haze of distance must nevertheless look a solid heavy mountain.
Reality is obtained not by imitation, but by producing the sense of nature.
If the artist’s will is not strong he will see all kinds of unessential things.
The good thing about painting from memory is that so much is forgotten.
Knowledge of anatomy is a tool like good brushes.
Know what the old masters did. Know how they composed their pictures, but do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them, and they are wonderful. They made their language. You make yours. All the past can help you.
Life is finding yourself. It is a spirit development.
Renoir had not only a great interest in human character, in human feeling, but had also a great love for the people he painted.
Personal experimentation is revealing, and once you get into it, immensely engaging.
Many receive a criticism and think it is fine; think they got their money’s worth; think well of the teacher for it, and then go on with their work just the same as before. That is the reason much of the wisdom of Plato is still locked up in the pages of Plato.
All outward success, when it has value, is but the inevitable result of an inward success of full living, full play and enjoyment of one’s faculties.
If you think of a school drawing while you work, your drawing will look like one.
If you work from memory, you are most likely to put in your real feeling.
Self-education only produces expressions of self.
Manet did not do the expected. He was a pioneer. He followed his individual whim. Told the public what he wanted it to know, not the time worn things the public already knew and thought it wanted to hear again. The public was very much offended.
Perhaps whatever there is in my work that may be really interesting to others and surely what is interesting to me, is the result of a sometimes successful effort to free myself from any idea that what I produce must be art...
It seems to me that before a man tries to express anything to the world he must recognize in himself an individual, a new one, very distinct from others.
A picture should be the expression of the will of the painter.
Do not expect pictures to say the expected; some of the best will have surprises for you, which will, at first, shock you.
Each man must take the material that he finds at hand, see that in it there are the big truths of life, the fundamentally big forces, and then express in his art whatever is the cause of his pleasure.