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The great black and white draftsman, the sculptor, and the blind man know that form and color are separate. The form itself is what the blind man knows...Color is surface skin that fits over the form.

John French Sloan

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John French Sloan
Age: 80 †
Born: 1871
Born: January 1
Died: 1951
Died: September 8
Artist
Designer
Draftsperson
Drawer
Etcher
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Painter
Lock Haven
Pennsylvania
sloan j.
John French Sloan
Black
Separate
Form
Skin
Great
Skins
Men
Surface
Fit
Draftsman
Blind
Sculptor
Color
Sculptors
White
Fits

More quotes by John French Sloan

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Don't be afraid to borrow. The great men, the most original, borrowed from everybody.
John French Sloan
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Find your own technique.
John French Sloan
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The subject may be of first importance to the artist when he starts a picture, but it should be of least importance in the finished product. The subject is of no aesthetic significance.
John French Sloan
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Most art students are generous till it comes to squeezing their colour on the palette... Many pictures haven't become works of art simply because the artist tried to save a nickel's worth of colour.
John French Sloan
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Consistency is the quality of a stagnant mind.
John French Sloan
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Be sensitive to your mistakes. Put it on the wall for a couple of weeks. It may be that you can learn more from the study of your own work than from others.
John French Sloan
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Draw with the brush. Carve the form. Don't be carried away by subtleties of modeling and nice pigmentation at the expense of losing the form.
John French Sloan
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The emphasis on original, individual work in the past years has done a great deal to produce a crop of eccentric fakes and has carried art away from the stream of tradition. Tradition is our heritage of knowledge and experience. We can't get along without it.
John French Sloan
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Study the great brush drawings of the Chinese and Japanese... When we try to imitate their conventions for perspective, form and texture we lose the content, because those artists were part of an ancient tradition. Our tradition changes rapidly, our schools of thought come to fruition quickly and decay again. We see differently.
John French Sloan
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A piece of drapery is like a necktie, hot stuff to paint, and one of the easiest things for a painter to kid himself into thinking he can do. Don't be fooled by the color. Go after the shape and character. Hew the forms together with colored tones.
John French Sloan
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A good drawing has immense vitality because it is explanatory. In a good drawing even its faults have become virtues.
John French Sloan
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Every good picture leaves the painter eager to start again, unsatisfied, inspired by the rich mine in which he is working, hoping for more energy, more vitality, more time - condemned to painting for life.
John French Sloan
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Color is like music. The palette is an instrument that can be orchestrated to build form.
John French Sloan
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In the hands of a master, light and shade is one of the great qualities of art.
John French Sloan
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When you draw a crowd of people in a street or room or landscape, decide whether you want to say that the people dominate the place or that the place is more important than the people.
John French Sloan
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Be sensitive to the qualities inherent in the medium. Paint honestly and avoid tricks.
John French Sloan
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I always think of shade as being full of light. That is why I like to use the word shade rather than light and shadow. Shade seems to play over the thing, envelop it, better define it, while shadow seems to fall on the thing and stain the surface with darks.
John French Sloan
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The artist seeks to record his awareness of order in life.
John French Sloan
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Always think of drawing, getting the forms realized, emphasizing the design.
John French Sloan
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Line is the most powerful device of drawing.
John French Sloan