“If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this: in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day: to paint the man, in short, as well as his features; in arrangement of colours to treat a flower as his key, not as his model. This is now understood indifferently well – at least by dressmakers. In every costume you see attention is paid to the key-note of colour which runs through the composition, as the chant of the Anabaptists through the 'Prophète', or the Hugenots' hymn in the opera of that name.”

— James McNeill Whistler

In a letter to 'The World', London 22 Mai, 1878; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 186
1870 - 1903

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James McNeill Whistler26

American-born, British-based artist 1834–1903

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“It is for the artist.... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.”

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) American-born, British-based artist

Propositions, 2
1870 - 1903, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies' (1890)

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The artist is obliged to invent the self who will paint his pictures.”

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic

Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), p. 191, "Saul Steinberg"

“The essential of painting is that something, that 'ethereal glue', that intermediary product which the artist secretes with all his creative being and which he has to place, to encrust, to impregnate into the pictorial stuff of the painting.”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

Yves Klein, catalogue of exhibition in the Jewish Museum, New York 1967, p. 18
from posthumous publications

“The artist should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees in himself. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting what he sees before him.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

Quote from "The Awe-Struck Witness" in TIME magazine (28 October 1974) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908926-1,00.html and in "On the Brink: The Artist and the Seas" by Eldon N. Van Liere in Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition: The Sea (1985) ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Variant translations: The artist should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also omit to paint that which he sees before him. As quoted in German Romantic Painting (1994) by William Vaughan, p. 68 undated Context: The artist should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees in himself. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting what he sees before him. Otherwise his pictures will be like those folding screens behind which one expects to find only the sick or the dead.

“Now men and their... um... equipment can sometimes falter under pressure so imagine the stress that artist Pricasso and his 'man thing' brush were under, when he came on stage to paint the one and only Carlotta.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[Gold Coast Bulletin staff, Gold Coast Bulletin, Queensland, Australia, News Limited, Fundraiser has a brush with 'talent', 7 March 2012, 24]
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“When Picasso does pure painting he is a great artist. When he paints as an cubist, putting one tone next to another, the arrangement of planes is fine and the result very strong. But those who imitate him achieve nothing worthwhile.”

Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) sculptor from France

Source: Conversations with Judith Cladel (1939–1944), p. 407

“The famous nude artist, Pricasso, who uses his member to paint, was kept busy swishing his "brush" over the canvas. He was quite a drawcard - and many a male observer whipped out his cellphone to take a picture.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

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“A museum that really wants to promote modern art might give the artist a guaranty, on certain conditions, so that he can get on with his life and his creations. Or do you believe that the museum is more interested in the artist's death, in order to see the price of his paintings go up?”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

Source: 1940s, I is Style (2000), p. 45 : in a letter (11 November 1940) to Käthe Steinitz, sent from the internment camp on Isle of Man, England.

“Artists who don't paint aren't artists.”

Charles Thomson (artist) (1953) British artist

Milner, Frank (ed): The Stuckists Punk Victorian [National Museums Liverpool, 2005], p. 134
From The Stuckist Manifesto (1999) co-written with Billy Childish

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