James McNeill Whistler Quotes

37 Sourced Quotes

John Ruskin: 'The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?'
Whistler: 'No. I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.'

James McNeill Whistler
On failing a chemistry test at the U.S. Military Academy:
Had silicon been a gas, I would have been a major-general by now.

James McNeill Whistler
To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labor, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.

James McNeill Whistler
Tip on how to become an artist:
All you need to know is which end of the brush to put in your mouth.

James McNeill Whistler
May I therefore acknowledge the tender glow of health induced by reading, as I sat here in the morning sun, the flattering attention paid me by your gentleman of ready wreath and quick biography!

James McNeill Whistler
As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of colour. The great musicians knew this. Beethoven and the rest wrote music — simply music; symphony in this key, concerto or sonata in that... Art should be independent of all claptrap — should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it; and that is why I insist on calling my works 'arrangements' and 'harmonies.'

James McNeill Whistler
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 McNeill Whistler
Two and two the mathematician continues to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

James McNeill Whistler
'I know of only two painters in the world,' said a newly introduced feminine enthusiast to Whistler, 'yourself and Velasquez.' 'Why,' answered Whistler in dulcet tones, 'why drag in Velasquez?'

James McNeill Whistler
The rare few, who, early in life, have rid themselves of the friendship of the many.

James McNeill Whistler
Shall the painter then.... decide upon painting? Shall he be the critic and sole authority? Aggressive as is this supposition, I fear that, in the length of time, his assertion alone has established what even the gentleman of the quill accept as the canons of art, and recognize as the masterpieces of work. Seurat's painting of the Grande Jatte proved extremely influential.

James McNeill Whistler
The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter—perfect in its bud as in its bloom - with no reason to explain it's 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 McNeill Whistler