Words matter. These are the best William Morris Hunt Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
What is nobler than a man wresting and wringing his bread from the stubborn soil by the sweat of his brow and the break of his back for his wife and children!
It gives a fellow an awful shiver to hear the first shovelful of dirt and gravel rattle down upon the coffin; but after it is covered, it falls gently and makes no sound. The feeling of rest is perfect. There’s no more nagging, no more pain!
When an artist leaves his work to amuse people, he loses his time and their respect. If people are to be amused by artists, it must be by employing them in their legitimate occupation.
I tell you it’s no joke to paint a portrait. I wonder that I am not more timid when I begin. I feel almost certain that I can do it. It seems very simple. I don’t think of the time that is sure to come when I almost despair, when the whole thing seems hopeless.
There is force and vitality in a first sketch from life which the after-work rarely has. You want a picture to seize you as forcibly as if a man had seized you by the shoulder! It should impress you like reality!
I don’t like persuaded sitters. I never could paint a cat if the cat had any scruples, religious, superstitious, or otherwise, about sitting.
It’s impossible to make a picture without values. Values are the basis. If they are not, tell me what is the basis.
Believe that time is going to help you do what you want.
Don’t put needless expense into painting a head! Don’t try to match tints! Rose and pearly colours blend into each other so that no one can unite them if painted separately. Keep the impression of your subject as one thing!
You can’t do a fine thing without having seen fine examples.
Painting is the only universal language. All nature is creation’s picture book. Painting alone can describe every thing which can be seen, and suggest every emotion which can be felt. Art reaches back into the babyhood of time, and is man’s only lasting monument.
The mission of art is to represent nature not to imitate her.
How are we going to make painters by lecturing to them? We are going to make questioners, doubters, and talkers. We are going to make painters by painting ourselves, and by showing the paintings of others. By working frankly from our convictions, we are going to make them work frankly from theirs.
Art teaches you the philosophy of life, and if you can’t learn it from art, you can’t learn it at all. It shows you that there is no perfection. There is light, and there is shadow. Everything is in half tint.
You can always draw as well as you know how to. I flatter myself that I feel more than I express on canvas; but I know that is not so.
