William Morris Hunt Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“There is force and vitality in a first sketch from life which the after-work rarely has. You want a picture to seize you as forcibly as if a man had seized you by the shoulder! It should impress you like reality!”

“What is nobler than a man wresting and wringing his bread from the stubborn soil by the sweat of his brow and the break of his back for his wife and children!”

“When an artist leaves his work to amuse people, he loses his time and their respect. If people are to be amused by artists, it must be by employing them in their legitimate occupation.”

“How are things visible? Can you see an egg against a white background? Not by drawing a line around it can you make it evident.”

“There's lots of fun in this world, after all. And if there isn't, there is in the next. And we're going there, sure.”

“You can always draw as well as you know how to. I flatter myself that I feel more than I express on canvas; but I know that is not so.”

“Most of us live for the critic, and he lives on us. He doesn't sacrifice himself. He gets so much a line for writing a criticism. If the birds should read the newspapers, they would all take to changing their notes. The parrots would exchange with the nightingales, and what a farce it would be!”

“Believe that time is going to help you do what you want.”

“I don't like persuaded sitters. I never could paint a cat if the cat had any scruples, religious, superstitious, or otherwise, about sitting.”

“It's impossible to make a picture without values. Values are the basis. If they are not, tell me what is the basis.”