17th-century Artist Quotes

Rembrandt
Nicolas Poussin
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten

The grand manner consists of four elements: subject or theme, concept, structure, and style. The first requirement, fundamental to all the others, is that the subject and the narrative be grandiose, such as battles, heroic actions, and religious themes.

Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin
How happy a thing were a wedding,
And a bedding,
If a man might purchase a wife
For a twelvemonth and a day

I can't paint the way they want me to paint and they know that too.
Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can't do it. I just can't do it! And that is why I am just a little crazy.

Rembrandt
Rembrandt
When he mixes a salad, the Devil, I've heard.
Three ingredients uses; first advocates' tongues.
Next notaries' fingers; I'll not name the third.

I have made a solemn vow never to send my drawings because people have cheated me. In particular, just today I found... that, having done a drawing of souls in Purgatory for the Bishop of St. Gata, he, in order to spend less, commissioned another painter to do the painting using my work. If I were a man, I can't imagine it would have turned out this way.

Another fitting example here is that of Hercules Segers, disregarded and yet a great artist......His observation was unwavering and effective, particularly in his design of landscapes and compositions, with imaginary mountains and caves. It was as if he were pregnant with whole provinces, giving birth to them with immeasurable spaces, and picturing them to a marvel in his paintings and prints.

Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten
Speaking to Salvator Rosa of the Italian painter Raphael:
Raphael, to be plain with you, for I prefer to be candid and outspoken, does not please me at all....It is Titian that bears the banner.