A painter must not only be of necessity an imitator of the works of nature...but he must be as necessarily an imitator of the works of other painters… - Joshua Reynolds

Nature is, and must be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellencies must originally flow.

You are never to lose sight of nature; the instant you do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of every gust of fashion, without knowing or seeing the point to which you ought to steer.

If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to address; nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects, which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart.