The things I haven't seen with my own eyes are for me unknown. - Eugène Fromentin

..the great Dutch school seemed to think of nothing but painting well [characterised by] the total absence of what today we call 'a subject'.

Interpreting the Orient through the arts would destroy it, the artistic exploitation might eventually prove as harmful as military or political adventurism.

..an entirely original painter [ Francois Millet ], high-minded and genuinely rustic in nature, who has expressed things about the country and its inhabitants, about their toil, their melancholy, and the nobleness of their labour. He has represented them in a somewhat barbaric fashion, in a manner to which his ideas gave a more expressive force than his hand possessed. The world has been grateful for his intentions; it has recognised in his methods something of the sensibility of a Burns who was a little awkward in expression.. ..He stands out as a deep thinker.