If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to address; nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects, which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart.

Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.

A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or histori…

A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.

What the artist wishes to do - as far as you are concerned - is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself.

Use harms and even destroys beauty. The noblest function of an object is to be contemplated.

'Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.'