18th-century Painter Quotes

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Jacques-Louis David

Caspar David Friedrich

Joshua Reynolds

John Constable

Thomas Gainsborough

Henry Fuseli

Turner has outdone himself; he seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy.

And see the rivers how they run Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, Wave succeeding wave, they go A various journey to the deep, Like human life to endless sleep!

We love a genius for what he leaves and mourn him for what he takes away

Thomas Gainsborough

An eye critically nice can only be formed by observing well-colored pictures with attention.

Joshua Reynolds

If men would only take the chances of doing right because it is right, instead of the immediate certainty of the advantage of doing wrong, how much happier would their lives be.

Benjamin Haydon

You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.

Caspar David Friedrich

Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity, and afraid of being overtaken by it.

James Northcote

Our ideas are the offspring of our senses; we are not more able to create the form of a being we have not seen, without retrospect to one we know, than we are able to create a new sense. He whose fancy has conceived an idea of the most beautiful form must have composed it from actual existence.

Let us strive to have eyes that see well, that see with sagacity: that is all I ask. If you want to see that leg as ugly, I know that there will be cause for you to do so, but I will tell you, "Take my eyes and you will see it as beautiful."

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

What a business is this of a portrait painter! You bring him a potato and expect he will paint you a peach.

There is no game of chance more hazardous than marriage.

Jacques-Louis David

When Troy was built, you recollect I dabbled as an Architect; A very sorry one, you'll say, But worse since then have come in play, And of the art I've understood Enough, to do more harm than good...