There really is no such thing as art. There are only artists.
All art is image making and all image making is the creation of substitutes.
The Painter must leave the beholder something to guess.
One never finishes learning about art. There are always new things to discover. Great works of art seem to look different every time one stands before them. They seem to be as inexhaustible and unpredictable as real human beings.
Art does not copy nature - it suggests it.
During the days of my youth, critics and art-lovers resorted freely to this term of abuse. Even some of the most renowned Old Masters were also pilloried as having manufactured insipid and sugary paintings that were offensive to good taste.