“He was never interested in conventional beauty. Sober, pinched, reflective, lined and melancholy, his portraits remind us of that. But how many American artists said more about the sense of being in the world? Eakins was that extreme rarity, an artist who refused to tell a lie even in the service of his own imagination.”
Robert Hughes, "Thomas Eakins," Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists (1990).
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Thomas Eakins 19
American painter 1844–1916Related quotes

[Gold Coast Bulletin staff, The 2012 Yoohoo Awards, Gold Coast Bulletin, 29 December 2012, 34, Queensland, Australia, News Limited]
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The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.

[Oh, Baby, Was X-Tina Ragin', New York Daily News, 24 February 2008, Jo Piazza, 18, Daily News L.P.]
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“An artist who theorizes about his work is no longer artist but critic.”
The Temptaion of Harringay (1929)

Quote in the late 1960s, as cited in Asger Jorn (2002) by Arken Museum of Modern Art, p. 28
1959 - 1973, Various sources
Section 2.2
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)