A weak background is a deadly thing.
The pernicious influence of the prize and medal giving in art is so great that it should be stopped. History proves that juries in art have been generally wrong.
Look for echoes. Sometimes the same shape or direction will echo through the picture.
Each sensation is precious, protect it, cherish it, keep it. Never give it away. You must develop that balance which allows all of the world to come in to you, and only that which you have expressed in your art to move back out again into the world.
The model is not to be copied, but to be realized.
Has your drawing the meaning you saw in the model at first?
Things should all be moving toward the expression of a great idea.
There has never been a painting that was more beautiful than nature. The model does not unfold herself to you, you must rise to her. She should be the inspiration for your painting. No man has ever over-appreciated a human being.
The reason for the survival of the award system is purely commercial.
I paint for the sole purpose of magnifying the privilege of being alive.
Strokes carry a message whether you will it or not. The stroke is just like the artist at the time he makes it. All the certainties, all the uncertainties, all the bigness of his spirit and the littlenesses are in it.
A mountain seen in the haze of distance must nevertheless look a solid heavy mountain.
If you do not act on a suggestion at first, you grow dull to its message.
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.