As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.

An artist's career always begins tomorrow

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.

We look at a painting to know the painter; it's his company we are after, not his skill.

People will forgive anything but beauty and talent. So I am doubly unpardonable.

The explanation is quite simple. I wished to be near my mother.