Softness of manner seems to be in painting what smoothness of syllables is in language, affecting the sense of sight or hearing, previous to any correspondent passion.
—William Shenstone (1714–63) British Poet, Landscape Gardener
If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
What a vanity is painting, which attracts admiration by the resemblance of things that in the original we do not admire!
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.
—Salvador Dali (1904–89) Spanish Painter
A picture is an intermediate something between a thought and a thing.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Would that we could at once paint with the eyes!—In the long way from the eye, through the arm, to the pencil, how much is lost!
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) German Writer, Philosopher
The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
The masters painted for joy, and knew riot that virtue had gone out of them. They could not paint the like in cold blood. The masters of English lyric wrote their songs so. It was a fine efflorescence of fine powers.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Fain would I Raphael’s god-like art rehearse, where, from the mingled strength of shade and light, a new creation rises to my sight; such heavenly figures from his pencil flow, so warrn with life his blended colors glow.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
A good painter is to paint two main things, men and the working of man’s mind.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Inventor, Architect
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
The first merit of pictures is the effect they produce on the mind; and the first step of a sensible man should be to receive involuntary impressions from them.—Pleasure and inspiration first; analysis, afterward.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
Sunlight is painting.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
The love of gain never made a painter, but it has marred many.
—Washington Allston (1779–1843) American Landscape Painter
The painter who is content with the praise of the world for what does not satisfy himself, is not an artist, but an artisan; for though his reward be only praise, his pay is that of a mechanic.
—Washington Allston (1779–1843) American Landscape Painter
Portrait-painting may be to the painter what the practical knowledge of the world is to the poet, provided he considers it as a school by which he is to acquire the means of perfection in his art, and not as the object of that perfection.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
A picture is a poem without words.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
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