Quote

Many cherish the idea that a photograph is an exact presentment of nature, and accept without question the paradox that a photograph cannot lie. Actually there never was a more unmitigated liar.

Walter J. Phillips

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Walter J. Phillips
Age: 78 †
Born: 1884
Born: October 25
Died: 1963
Died: July 5
Painter
Wood Carver
Barton-upon-Humber
Lincolnshire
Walter Joseph Phillips
Walter Phillips
Phillips
Nature
Photograph
Cannot
Photography
Ideas
Accept
Unmitigated
Without
Accepting
Liar
Many
Question
Liars
Never
Lying
Exact
Actually
Paradox
Idea
Cherish

More quotes by Walter J. Phillips

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When technique is obtrusive it becomes mere mannerism, a conscious striving for effect. It is only a means to an end - the manner of putting paint to paper. It hardly embraces the expressive side of painting.
Walter J. Phillips
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Humility counts for much, but it may be that vanity does not dispossess that admirable quality.
Walter J. Phillips
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Submit your work to interested societies for exhibition where the critics in the light of their physical well-being and according to the extent of their knowledge, may appraise them conveniently.
Walter J. Phillips
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Perhaps the ideal life is that of the week-end artist, who preserves the integrity of his own aesthetic ideals because of his economic independence... If his daily grind is hateful he has his weekly solace in art.
Walter J. Phillips
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In large studio paintings... composition, or arrangement, may be better studied, and nearer perfection, washes may be more suavely graded.
Walter J. Phillips
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When spring is here the sketcher begins to look over his equipment and relishes in anticipation the soothing hours he will spend in the open, warmed by the sun, fanned by the breeze, charmed by the manifold delights of nature.
Walter J. Phillips
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I don't like to think that I am a slave to technique, or so inept that I have to restrict myself to one method.
Walter J. Phillips
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The beauties of conception are always superior to those of expression.
Walter J. Phillips
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For an intelligent estimate of your technique go to another artist working in the same medium.
Walter J. Phillips
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A landscape painting in which composition is ignored is like a line taken from a poem at random: it lacks context, and may or may not make sense.
Walter J. Phillips
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The deserving are not always blest. That peculiar attribute known as personality is as potent a factor as genius.
Walter J. Phillips
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Rhythm is as necessary in a picture as pigment it is as much a part of painting as of music.
Walter J. Phillips
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Annoyance arises from the feared implication that we are copyists in subject or treatment, or both, whereas the common qualities that establish the relationship result merely from a similarity of method.
Walter J. Phillips
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Universal appreciation of art... belongs to those countries and those ages which are not, or were not, ruled by materialism. Though travel was never so easy, literature on art never so profuse, and works of art never so widely distributed, a real passion for pictures is encountered but rarely.
Walter J. Phillips
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While sincerity and over-anxiety can spoil a picture, through superfluous elaboration and unnecessary correction, the carelessness that would leave it in an unfinished state is even more reprehensible.
Walter J. Phillips
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It is not in the nature of lenses to tell the whole truth. They are instruments of exaggeration and belittlement.
Walter J. Phillips
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Water is the most expressive element in nature. It responds to every mood from tranquility to turbulence.
Walter J. Phillips
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It is often said that the modern exhibition has ruined painting. It is an unfortunate fact that it does encourage competition, so that, to attract attention to his work, an artist is tempted to descend to sensationalism, whether it is expressed by strong colour, grotesque handling, unusual subject, or sheer size.
Walter J. Phillips
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The rewards of art are not always commensurate with its quality. It affords a precarious living.
Walter J. Phillips
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The syllogism art for art's sake refers to that kind of painting which disregards, or is contrary to, public taste.
Walter J. Phillips