Masters Quotes - Page 3

• Mastery is an elusive concept. You never know when you achieve it absolutely and it may not help you to feel you've attained it. We can recognize it more readily in others than we can in ourselves. We have to discover our own definition of it.

  Twyla Tharp

  May, Definitions, Mastery

  Twyla Tharp, Mark Reiter (2003). “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life”, Simon and Schuster

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• The air we see in the paintings of the old masters is never the air we breathe.

  Edgar Degas

  Air, Painting, Breathe

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• It is impossible to tell you the perfect sweetness of the lips and closed eyes, nor the solemnity of the seal of death which is set upon the whole figure. It is, in every way, perfect--truth itself, but truth selected with inconceivable refinement of feeling.

  John Ruskin

  Eye, Perfect, Feelings

  John Ruskin (1903). “The Works of John Ruskin”

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• I take back all I ever said about the Old Masters. They give great lessons.

  Howard Pyle

  Giving, Lessons, Said

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• Follow the masters! But why should one follow them? The only reason they are masters is that they didn't follow anybody!

  Paul Gauguin

  Reason, Should

  Paul Gauguin (1978). “The writings of a savage”, Viking Adult

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• I intend to do a large painting of the cliff at Etretat, although it is terribly bold of me to do so after Courbet has painted it so admirably, but I will try to do it in a different way.

  Claude Monet

  Trying, Different, Way

  Claude Monet (2014). “Monet by Himself: Paintings, Drawings, Pastels, Letters”, Chartwell

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• I've said it before and can only repeat that I owe everything to Boudin and I attribute my success to him. I came to be fascinated by his studies, the products of what I call instantaneity.

  Claude Monet

  Study, Attributes, Said

  Claude Monet (2005). “Monet”, Rizzoli International Publications

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• I refused [to study under Rodin] because nothing grows under large trees.

  Constantin Brancusi

  Tree, Rodin, Study

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• Turner has outdone himself; he seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy.

  John Constable

  Paint, Airy, Steam

  John E. Thornes, John Constable (1999). “John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science”, p.181, A&C Black

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• Raphael and Titian seem to have looked at Nature for different purposes; they both had the power of extending their view to the whole; but one looked only for the general effect as produced by form, the other as produced by colour.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Views, Different, Purpose

  Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gray, Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy, William Mason (1851). “The literary works of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.67

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• It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excellence with regard to color, and light and shade, in the highest degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art. By a few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever object he attempted.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Art, Character, Eye

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1850). “Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, Delivered at the Royal Academy”, p.72

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• The first sight of Degas' pictures was the turning point of my artistic life.

  Mary Cassatt

  Sight, Artistic Life, Degas

  Mary Cassatt, Nancy Mowll Mathews (1984). “Cassatt and her circle: selected letters”, Abbeville Pr

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• If you set out to copy after one master today and after one tomorrow, you will not acquire the style of either one or the other, and you will inevitably become fantastic, because each style will fatigue your mind.

  Cennino Cennini

  Style, Mind, Today

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• Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese absolutely enchanted me, for they took away all sense of subject... It was the poetry of color which I felt, procreative in its nature, giving birth to a thousand things which the eye cannot see, and distinct from their cause.

  Washington Allston

  Eye, Color, Giving

  "The Quotable Artist". Book by Peggy Hadden, p. 20, 2002.

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• In their pursuit of the same supreme end, Matisse and Picasso stand side by side, Matisse representing color and Picasso form.

  Wassily Kandinsky

  Color, Sides, Ends

  Wassily Kandinsky (2012). “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, p.18, Courier Corporation

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• I recommend that you should work actively... and study the artistic structures of Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Watteau, Poussin, and other painters, even Chardin, where he is an artist. Study very closely their dabbing manner of execution and try to copy a small piece of canvas, just one square inch.

  Kazimir Malevich

  Artist, Squares, Trying

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• To mention only contemporaries, Delacroix, Corot, Millet, Rousseau, Courbet are masters. And finally [I like] all those [painters] who loved and had a strong feeling for nature.

  Alfred Sisley

  Strong, Feelings, Painter

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• What I am looking for is a masterpiece. I don't want to waste my time. I am tired of experiments.

  Natalia Makarova

  Tired, Want, Waste

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• He who chooses to be a master never does 'just enough' to get by - nor does he cut corners or attempt to cheat the system. He who chooses mastery lives his life asking, 'How can I do more, give more, be more, and thereby accelerate the achievement of my ultimate destiny?

  James Arthur Ray

  Cutting, Destiny, Giving

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• This art of conservation is strength, and makes the masterpiece a masterpiece. Otherwise, the man who simply brought all the different colors obtainable, and squeezed them out upon the canvas to give it 'full force,' would be the greatest master, instead of being merely extravagant.

  John F. Carlson

  Art, Men, Color

  John F. Carlson (2013). “Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting”, p.88, Courier Corporation

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• Choose only one master - Nature.

  Rembrandt

  Art, Nature, Choices

  "Rembrandt Drawings" by Paul Némo, translated by David Macrae, 1975.

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• Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.

  James A. Garfield

  Country, Money, Democracy

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• We cannot all be masters.

  William Shakespeare

  Leadership, Acceptance

  William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1813). “The Plays of William Shakespeare: In Twenty-one Volumes, with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators, to which are Added Notes”, p.230

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• If the Masters offered no money at all, I would be here trying just as hard.

  Ben Hogan

  Golf, Trying, Would Be

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• Bless... the two painting masters who first pointed out to me that there was coming and going among trees, that there was sunlight in shadows.

  Emily Carr

  Two, Tree, Shadow

  Emily Carr (2009). “Growing Pains: The Autobiography of Emily Carr”, p.314, D & M Publishers

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