You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry w… - Joshua Reynolds

The true test of all the arts, is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind.

It must be remembered that painting is not the mere gratification of sight.

No Art can be grafted with success on another art. For though they all profess the same origin, and to proceed from the same stock, yet each has its own peculiar modes both of imitating nature, and of deviating from it, each for the accomplishment of its own particular purpose. These deviations, more especially, will not bear transplantation to another soil.