Quote

It is for the artist... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.

James Whistler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

James Whistler
Age: 69 †
Born: 1834
Born: July 10
Died: 1903
Died: July 17
Artist
Designer
Etcher
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Lithographer
Painter
Printmaker
Writer
East Chelmsford
Massachusetts
James Whistler
J. A. MacNeill Whistler
James McNeil Whistler
James A. McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeil Whistler
Whistler
James Abbott MacNeil Whistler
J. McNeill Whistler
J. A. McN. Whistler
James Abbott Mcneill Whistler
James Abbott Whistler
jas. mcNeal whistler
J.M.N. Whistler
j. mcneil whistler
J.M. Neill Whistler
whistler j.m
Men
Short
Portrait
Painting
Wears
Face
Portraits
Faces
Canvas
Artist
Features
Wells
Model
Well
Models
Something
Paint
Portraiture

More quotes by James Whistler

Image
The explanation is quite simple. I wished to be near my mother.
James Whistler
Image
Paint should not be applied thick. It should be like a breath on the surface of a pane of glass.
James Whistler
Image
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 Whistler
Image
I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.
James Whistler
Image
Mauve is just pink trying to be purple.
James Whistler
Image
Frederic Leighton to James McNeill Whistler: 'My dear Whistler, you leave your pictures in such a sketchy, unfinished state. Why don't you ever finish them?' James McNeill Whistler to Frederic Leighton: 'My dear Leighton, why do you ever begin yours?
James Whistler
Image
The work of a master reeks not of the sweat of the brow - suggests no effort - and is finished from its beginning.
James Whistler
Image
Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that nature is usually wrong.
James Whistler
Image
Over and over again did the Attorney-General cry out aloud, in the agony of his cause, 'What is to become of painting if the critics withhold their lash?
James Whistler
Image
You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.
James Whistler
Image
Listen! There was never an artistic period. There was never an art-loving nation.
James Whistler
Image
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.
James Whistler
Image
Can't a person be born where they want to be born?
James Whistler
Image
Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artists is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful - as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony
James Whistler
Image
The world is divided into two classes - invalids and nurses.
James Whistler
Image
People will forgive anything but beauty and talent. So I am doubly unpardonable.
James Whistler
Image
Art is limited to the infinite, and beginning there cannot progress.
James Whistler
Image
I remember that at one time I always made a drawing before going to bed!! - Of myself I mean - though I finally destroyed most of them.
James Whistler
Image
The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter - perfect in its bud as in its bloom - with no reason to explain its presence - no mission to fulfill - a joy to the artist, a delusion to the philanthropist - a puzzle to the botanist - an accident of sentiment and alliteration to the literary man.
James Whistler
Image
I am not arguing with you - I am telling you.
James Whistler