James McNeill Whistler Quotes

Shall the painter then.. ..decide upon painting? Shall he be the critic and sole authority? Aggressive as is this supposition, I fear that, in the length of time, his assertion alone has established what even the gentleman of the quill accept as the canons of art, and recognize as the masterpieces of work. Seurat's painting of the Grande Jatte proved extremely influential.

It is for the artist.. ..in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.

Art is upon the Town!

One cannot continually disappoint a Continent.

Oscar Wilde: 'I wish I had said that'
Whistler: 'You will, Oscar, you will.'

A group from Glasgow sought in 1891 to purchase his portrait of w:Thomas Carlyle was shocked that Whistler's price was 1000 guineas. A spokesman countered that the portrait was not even life size. Whistler replied, 'But, you know, few men are life size.'

If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this: in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day: to paint the man, in short, as well as his features; in arrangement of colours to treat a flower as his key, not as his model. This is now understood indifferently well – at least by dressmakers. In every costume you see attention is paid to the key-note of colour which runs through the composition, as the chant of the Anabaptists through the 'Prophète', or the Hugenots' hymn in the opera of that name.

Art is a goddess of dainty thought, reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better others. She is, withal selfishly occupied with her own perfection only — having no desire to teach.

May I therefore acknowledge the tender glow of health induced by reading, as I sat here in the morning sun, the flattering attention paid me by your gentleman of ready wreath and quick biography!

Two and two continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter—perfect in its bud as in its bloom - with no reason to explain it's presence - no mission to fulfill - a joy to the artist, a delusion to the philanthropist - a puzzle to the botanist - an accident of sentiment and alliteration to the literary man.

To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labor, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.

One is always finding out more.

Listen! There was never an artistic period. There was never an art-loving nation.

Industry in art is a necessity - not a virtue - and any evidence of the same, in the production, is a blemish, not a quality; a proof, not of achievement, but of absolutely insufficient work, for work alone will efface the footsteps of work.