“Good painters imitate nature, bad ones vomit it.”

— Miguel de Cervantes, book Novelas ejemplares

El licenciado Vidriera [The Lawyer of Glass]
Novelas ejemplares (1613)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Good painters imitate nature, bad ones vomit it." by Miguel de Cervantes?

Miguel de Cervantes178

Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright 1547–1616

Related quotes

“To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits while watching one of my films, it's like getting a standing ovation. But one must remember that there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Books, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste (1981)

“A painter must not only be of necessity an imitator of the works of nature…but he must be as necessarily an imitator of the works of other painters: this appears more humiliating, but is equally true; and no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any other terms.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

Discourse no. 6, delivered on December 10, 1774; vol. 1, p. 150.
Discourses on Art

“Whoever does not see in a good light is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover. Whoever does not see in a good light has not been able to lift his mind up to what is there or his heart to what is good.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Context: Whoever does not see his friends in a good light loves them little. To see in a good light. — Whoever does not see in a good light is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover. Whoever does not see in a good light has not been able to lift his mind up to what is there or his heart to what is good.

“Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“It is better to be a good human being than to be a bad one. It is just naturally better.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)

“Fine Art then, records by idealised imitation the glorious works of good men, whilst it holds those of bad men up to our abhorrence — it gives to posterity their images, either on the tinted canvass or the sculptured marble — it imitates the beautiful effects of nature as seen in the glowing landscape or the rising storm, and perpetuates the appearance of those beauteous gems of the seasons — flowers and fruits, which, though fading whilst the painter catches their tints, yet live after decay by and through his genius.
Industrial Art, on the contrary, aims at the embellishment of the works of man, by and through that power which is given to the artist for the investigation of the beautiful in nature; and in transferring it to the loom, the printing machine, the potter's wheel, or the metal worker's mould, he reproduces nature in a new form, adapting it to his purpose by an intelligence arising out of his knowledge as an artist and as a workman. In short, the adaptation of the natural type to a new material compels him to reproduce, almost create, as well as imitate — invent as well as copy”

George Wallis

design as well as draw! <br class="br">George Wallis. " Art Education for the people. No IV. The principles of Fine Art as Applied to Industrial Purposes http://books.google.com/books?id=l55GAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA231." In: People's & Howitt's Journal: Of Literature, Art, and Popular Progress, Vol. 3. John Saunders ed. 1847, p. 231.