If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.

The work of a master reeks not of the sweat of the brow - suggests no effort - and is finished from its beginning.

I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.

If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.

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.

The world is divided into two classes - invalids and nurses.