Painting

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Rais'd of themselves, their genuine charms they boast
And those who paint 'em truest praise 'em most. ~ Joseph Addison

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface (support base). In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay, copper or concrete, and may incorporate multiple other materials including sand, clay, paper, gold leaf as well as objects.

Quotes[edit]

Quotes are listed alphabetically by author

A-D[edit]

As certain as the Correggiosity of Correggio. ~ Augustine Birrell
A picture is a poem without words. ~ Cornificius
Hard features every bungler can command:
To draw true beauty shows a master's hand. ~ John Dryden
  • Rais'd of themselves, their genuine charms they boast
    And those who paint 'em truest praise 'em most.
    • Joseph Addison, The Campaign, last line. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • In general, just as painters in working from models constantly gaze at their exemplar and thus strive to transfer the expression of the original to their own artistry, so too he who is anxious to make himself perfect in all the kinds of virtue must gaze upon the lives of the saints as upon statues, so to speak, that move and act, and must make their excellence his own by imitation.
  • As certain as the Correggiosity of Correggio.
    • Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta, Emerson. Phrase found also in Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Chapter XII. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • From the mingled strength of shade and light
    A new creation rises to my sight,
    Such heav'nly figures from his pencil flow,
    So warm with light his blended colors glow.
    * * * * * *
    The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring
    Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring.
    • Lord Byron, Monody on the death of the Rt. Hon. R. B. Sheridan, Stanza 3. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • If they could forget for a moment the correggiosity of Correggio and the learned babble of the sale-room and varnishing Auctioneer.
    • Thomas Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Book IV, Chapter III. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • What avails, then, the folly of the painter, who from sinful love of gain depicts that which should not be depicted—that is, with his polluted hands he tries to fashion that which should only be believed in the heart and confessed with the mouth? He makes an image and calls it Christ.
  • If anyone shall endeavor to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colors which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, let him be anathema!
    • Iconoclastic Conciliabulum, 754 AD [1]
  • A picture is a poem without words.
    • Cornificius, Anet. ad Her., 4. 28. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • Paint me as I am. If you leave out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling.
    • Oliver Cromwell, Remark to the Painter, Lely. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • Hard features every bungler can command:
    To draw true beauty shows a master's hand.
    • John Dryden, To Mr. Lee, on his Alexander, line 53. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.

E-H[edit]

Well, something must be done for May,
The time is drawing nigh—
To figure in the Catalogue,
And woo the public eye. ~ Thomas Hood
  • Pictures must not be too picturesque.
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Of Art. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • "Paint me as I am," said Cromwell,
    "Rough with age and gashed with wars;
    Show my visage as you find it,
    Less than truth my soul abhors."
    • James Thomas Fields, On a Portrait of Cromwell. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight.
  • Pieter Bruegel the Elder: My painting will have to tell many stories. It should be large enough to hold everything. Everything, all the people. There must be a hundred of them. I will work like the spider I saw this morning building its web.First it finds an anchoring point. Here, the heart of my web.
    • The Mill and the Cross written by Michael Francis Gibson and Lech Majewski
  • A flattering painter, who made it his care
    To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
    • Oliver Goldsmith, Retaliation (1774), line 63. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • The fellow mixes blood with his colors.
  • One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of mankind, from generation to generation until the colors fade and blacken out of sight or the canvas rot entirely away.
    • Nathaniel Hawthorne, Marble Faun, Book II, Chapter XII. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.

  • Well, something must be done for May,
    The time is drawing nigh—
    To figure in the Catalogue,
    And woo the public eye.

    Something I must invent and paint;
    But oh my wit is not
    Like one of those kind substantives
    That answer Who and What?

    • Thomas Hood, The Painter Puzzled. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • Delphinum sylvis appingit, fluctibus aprum.
    • He paints a dolphin in the woods, a boar in the waves.
    • Horace, Ars Poetica (18 BC), XXX. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.

I-L[edit]

  • He that seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius: as he must needs paint for other minds, and not for his own.
    • Mrs. Jameson, Memoirs and Essays, Washington Allston. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • Nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum.
    • I only feel, but want the power to paint.
    • Juvenal, Satires, VII. 56. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.
    • Frida Kahlo quoted in Time Magazine, "Mexican Autobiography" (27 April 1953)
  • The form of my painting is the content.
    • Ellsworth Kelly quoted in: "Abstract Art", Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson 1990, p. 173.
  • The only good copies are those which exhibit the defects of bad originals.
  • The picture that approaches sculpture nearest
    Is the best picture.

M-P[edit]

  • Vain is the hope by colouring to display
    The bright effulgence of the noontide ray
    Or paint the full-orb'd ruler of the skies
    With pencils dipt in dull terrestrial dyes.
    • Mason, Fresnoy's Art of Painting. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • Painting responded to the plague-darkened vision of the human condition provoked by repeated exposure to sudden, inexplicable death. Tuscan painters reacted against Giotto's serenity, preferring sterner, hieratic portrayals of religious scenes and figures. The "Dance of Death" became a common theme for art; and several other macabre motifs entered the European repertory.
  • I mix them with my brains, sir.
    • John Opie, when asked with what he mixed his colors. See Samuel Smiles, Self Help, Chapter V. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • I accept the fact that the important painting of the last hundred years was done in France. American painters have generally missed the point of modern painting from beginning to end.. ..Thus the fact that good European moderns (European artists who lived in the U.S. because of the Nazi-regime, fh) are now here is very important, for they bring with them an understanding of the problems of modern painting. I am particularly impressed with their concept of the source of art being the unconscious. These idea interests me more than these specific artists do, for the two artists I admire most, Picasso and Miró, are still abroad.
    • Jackson Pollock Art and Architecture Vol. 61 no. 2, February 1944; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, p. 138, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York, 1990.
  • He best can paint them who shall feel them most.
    • Alexander Pope, Eloisa and Abelard, last line. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • Lely on animated canvas stole
    The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul.
    • Alexander Pope, Second Book of Horace, Epistle I, line 149. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.

Q-T[edit]

The fellow mixes blood with his colors. ~ Guido Reni
If, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty, and human soul that moves you — if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fullness thereof. ~ John Ruskin
What demi-god
Hath come so near creation? ~ William Shakespeare
  • Painting with all its technicalities, difficulties, and peculiar ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing.
    • John Ruskin, True and Beautiful, Painting, Introduction. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • If it is the love of that which your work represents — if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that moves you — if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty, and human soul that moves you — if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fullness thereof.
    • John Ruskin, The Two Paths, Lect. I. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • Look here, upon this picture, and on this.
    • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 4, line 53. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • I will say of it,
    It tutors nature: artificial strife
    Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
  • The painting is almost the natural man:
    For since dishonour traffics with man's nature,
    He is but outside; pencill'd figures are
    Ev'n such as they give out.
  • Wrought he not well that painted it?
    He wrought better that made the painter; and yet he's but a filthy piece of work.
  • With hue like that when some great painter dips
    His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.
    • Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, Canto V, Stanza 23. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • … ζωγραφίαν ποίησιν σιωπῶσαν προσαγορεύει [sc. ὁ Σιμωνίδης], τὴν δὲ ποίησιν ζωγραφίαν λαλοῦσαν.
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech.
Painting is silent poetry, poetry is eloquent painting.
See also: Ut pictura poesis
  • There is no such thing as a dumb poet or a handless painter. The essence of an artist is that he should be articulate.
    • Algernon Charles Swinburne, Essays and Studies, Matthew Arnold's New Poems. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • But who can paint
    Like nature? Can Imagination boast,
    Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
    • James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring (1728), line 465. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.

U-Z[edit]

  • Take a piece of glass of the size of a half sheet of royal folio paper, and fix it... between your eye and the object you wish to portray. Then move it away until your eye is two-thirds of a braccio away from the piece of glass, and fasten your head by means of an instrument in such a way as to prevent any movement of it whatsoever. Then close or cover up one eye, and with a brush or a piece of red chalk finely ground mark out on the glass what is visible beyond it; afterwards, copy it by tracing on paper from the glass, then prick it out upon paper of a better quality and paint it if you so desire, paying special attention to the aerial perspective.
  • If you wish to thoroughly accustom yourself to correct and good positions for your fingers, fasten a frame or a loom divided into squares by threads between your eye and the nude figure which you are representing, and then make the same squares upon the paper where you wish to draw the said nude but very faintly. You should then put a pellet of wax on a part of the network to serve as a mark which as you look at your model should always cover the pit of the throat, or if he should have turned his back make it cover one of the vertebrae of the neck. ...The squares you draw may be as much smaller than those of the network in proportion as you wish your figure to be less than life size...
    • Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci XXIX Precepts of the Painter, Tr. Edward MacCurdy (1938).
  • When you wish to see whether the general effect of your picture corresponds with that of the object represented after nature, take a mirror and set it so that it reflects the actual thing, and then compare the reflection with your picture, and consider carefully whether the subject of the two images is in conformity with both, studying especially the mirror. The mirror ought to be taken as a guide... you see the picture made upon one plane showing things which appear in relief, and the mirror upon one plane does the same. The picture is on one single surface, and the mirror is the same. ...if you but know well how to compose your picture it will also seem a natural thing seen in a great mirror.
  • They dropped into the yolk of an egg the milk that flows from the leaf of a young fig-tree, with which, instead of water, gum or gumdragant, they mixed their last layer of colours.
    • Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, Vol. I, Chapter II. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • In such miniature paintings the theme of lyric poetry was depicted with strong confident lines, throbbing colours, and bold patterns, but controlled workmanship. The lively landscape created a standard for these outstanding illustrations.
    • Madhu Bazaz Wangu in: "Images of Indian Goddesses: Myths, Meanings, and Models", P.120
  • The ornamental borders framing the miniature paintings seem to be inspired by the decorative designs on the Mughal carpets.
    • Madhu Bazaz Wangu in: "Images of Indian Goddesses: Myths, Meanings, and Models", P.147
  • I would I were a painter, for the sake
    Of a sweet picture, and of her who led,
    A fitting guide, with reverential tread,
    Into that mountain mystery.
    • John Greenleaf Whittier, Mountain Pictures, No. 2. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
  • A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, water colour, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century elites, mainly in England and France, and spread across the rest of Europe from the middle of the 18th-century, remaining highly popular until the development of daguerreo types and photography in the mid-19th century. They were especially valuable in introducing people to each other over distances; a nobleman proposing the marriage of his daughter might send a courier with her portrait to visit potential suitors. Soldiers and sailors might carry miniatures of their loved ones while traveling, or a wife might keep one of her husband while he was away. The first miniaturists used water colour to paint on stretched vellum. During the second half of the 17th century, vitreous enamel painted on copper became increasingly popular, especially in France. In the 18th century, miniatures were painted with water colour on ivory, which had now become relatively cheap. As small in size as 40 mm × 30 mm, portrait miniatures were often used as personal w:Mementosmementos or as jewellery or snuff box covers.
    • George C. Williamson in: "The Work of Alyn Williams, P.R.M.S. (President of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters)" Pamphlet – January 1, 1920

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