“I have learned from experience that it is useful to begin by drawing one's picture clearly on a virgin canvas, first having noted the desired effect on a white or gray paper, and then to do the picture section by section, as immediately finished as one can, so that when it has all been covered there is very little to retouch. I have noticed that whatever is finished at one sitting is fresher, better drawn, and profits more from many lucky accidents, while when one retouches this initial harmonious glow is lost. I think that this method is particularly good for foliage, which needs a good deal of freedom.”

— Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Quote from Corot's 'Notebooks', ca. 1828, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 239 – 240
1820 - 1850

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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot 17

French landscape painter and printmaker in etching 1796–1875

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“[those paintings that are] done entirely by my hand.... [those, ]done by the hand of a master skillfull in that department.... but this one not being finished, would be entirely retouched by my own hand, and by this means would pass as original; done by one of my pupils, but the whole retouched by my hand.”

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Flemish painter

In a letter of 28 April, 1618, to the collector Sir Dudley Carleton; transl. from Italian, R. Saunders Magurn, The letters of Peter Paul Rubens, Cambridge Mass., 1955, p.60-61
Rubens is indicating in this letter to a good client the level of his personal involvement in several paintings which were offered then for sale. Rubens is specifying his involvement in a variety of degrees, in relation to the attribution by pupils or by other fellow-artists - like his cooperation in many paintings with Breughel, for instance
1605 - 1625

“The chief aim of color should be to serve expression as well as possible. I put down my colors without a preconceived plan. If at the first step and perhaps without my being conscious of it one tone has particularly pleased me, more often then not when the picture is finished, I will notice that I have respected this tone while I have progressively altered and transformed the others. I discover the quality of colors in a purely instinctive way.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Source: 1900s, Notes d'un Peintre (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 412

“That's the terrible thing: the more one works on a picture, the more impossible it becomes to finish it.”

Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) Swiss sculptor and painter (1901-1966)

Alberto Giacometti in: James Lord (1965), Giacometti Portrait, p. 11-12; as cited in: James Olney (1998), Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing. p. 331

“When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

As quoted in Richard Friedenthal, Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock (Thames and Hudson, London, 1963), p. 40
1800s - 1810s

“Although Titian's works seem to many to have been created without much effort, this is far from the truth and those who think so are deceiving themselves. In fact, it is clear that Titian retouched his pictures, going over them with his colours several times, so that he must obviously have taken great pains. The method he used is judicious, beautiful, and astonishing, for it makes pictures appear alive and painted with great art, but it conceals the labour that has gone into them.”

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) Italian painter, architect, writer and historian

Giorgio Vasari in "Titian of Cadore", in Lives of the Artists as translated by George Bull (1987), Vol. I p. 458.

“I have added some ploughmen to the landscape form the park pales which is a great help, but I must try and warm the picture a little more if I can… but I look to do a great deal better in future. I am determined to finish a small picture in the spot for every one I intend to make in future. But this I have always talked about but never yet done – I think however my mind is more settled and determined than ever on this point.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote in his letter to John Dunthorne (14 February 1814), as quoted in Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 151
1800s - 1810s

“I can hardly describe the discord produced by the comparison of the retouched part of the painting and the part left untouched, the former having lost entirely the immediacy and brio of the brushwork and the latter the mastery of sensitive and discerning touches... For it is true that the more one retouches under the pretext of restoration, the more harm one does, and even the artists themselves, were they able to return, would not able to retouch their painting perfectly on account of the necessary change in the hue of pigments over time… No painting by Titian should be relined, nor any paintings by a number of other painters.... and, even when it is possible, the operation is more likely to result in deterioration than in improvement of the painting.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

from his Letters 263-264. circa 1801; in Goya, A life in Letters, edited and introduced by Sarah Simmons; translations by Philip Troutman, London, Pimlico, 2004
Early 1801 - Goya was then First Painter of the Court - the artist is sent to check the results of some restoration operated on works belonging to the Spanish crown. His 263-264 letters reveal the total opposition of Goya against any cleaning or restoration of older paintings
1800s

“That's good advice.... all the more so since I may well be forced to leave it [the painting] at that, as so often happens when the model doesn't come back. That's always been my principal concern, to make sure of getting regular sittings. Whenever I start something, I'm always afraid the model will let me down... They come, they pose, then away they go, telling themselves that he can finish it off on his own. Well no, one can't finish anything on one's own, particularly since one only finishes on the day one starts, and that means starting often and having plenty of days available.”

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) French painter

Quote of Manet c. 1880, recorded by Antonin Proust; as quoted in 'The Importance of Manet's Conceptualization in 'Olympia' and 'The Bar at the Folies-Bergère' http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/manet/arthistory_manet.html, by Charles Moffat, on 'The Art History Archive', c. 2001
1876 - 1883

“But there is one very odd thing - to notice that basically a picture doesn't change, that the first 'vision' remains almost intact, in spite of appearances. I often ponder on a light and a dark when I have put them into a painting; I try hard to break them up by interpolating a color that will create a different effect. When the work is photographed, I note that what I put in to correct my first vision has disappeared, and that, after all, the photographic image corresponds with my first vision before the transformation I insisted on.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Boisgeloup, winter 1934
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 313
Quotes, 1930's

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Inaugural Address
Context: If a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot 17

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