We look at a painting to know the painter; it's his company we are after, not his skill.
James WhistlerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A picture should be admired for its beauty rather than for the effort put into creating it.
James Whistler critiques the idea that a painting is commendable merely for the effort and labor that went into its creation. He suggests that true artistry should lead to a completed, visually pleasing work rather than a piece that suggests struggle and labor without delivering aesthetic value.
Themes
ArtCreativityBeautyEffortExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In an art critique, one might refer to Whistlerβs quote to emphasize the importance of aesthetic value over just hard work.
More from James Whistler
All quotes βI 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.
James WhistlerRead
To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.
James WhistlerRead
An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.
James WhistlerRead
Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.
James WhistlerRead
Similar quotes
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
Terry PratchettRead
For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.
Sam ShepardRead
Drawing is the root of everything, and the time spent on that is actually all profit.
Vincent Van GoghRead
When you're traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I've met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.
The WeekndRead
For me, electronic music is like cooking: it's a sensual organic activity where you can mix ingredients.
Jean Michel JarreRead
I cannot life for life itself: but for the words which stay the flux. My life, I feel, will not be lived until there are books and stories which relive it perpetually in time. I forget too easily how it was, and shrink to the horror of the here and now, with no past and no future. Writing breaks open the vaults of the dead and the skies behind which the prophesying angels hide. The mind makes and makes, spinning its web.
Sylvia PlathRead