John F. Carlson - Carlson's Guide To Landscape Painting

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A work of art in paint should be beautiful and expressive as abstract colour and form and should not interest us necessarily in any 'story' outside of itself - or else it belongs to the field of illustration.

John F. Carlson
The underlying principles or fundamentals should be so hidden away by the beauty they are eventually to support, that it would require much digging to disclose them.

John F. Carlson
We must not imitate the externals of nature with so much fidelity that the picture fails to evoke that wonderful teasing recurrence of emotion that marks the contemplation of a work of art.

John F. Carlson
The artist himself is often surprised at the finished work of art. He cannot tell 'how it happened', nor could he repeat the feat at someone's bidding.

John F. Carlson
A picture is a work of art, not because it is 'modern,' nor because it is 'ancient,' but because it is a sincere expression of human feeling.

John F. Carlson
Art is a thing so much of the imagination, of the soul, that it is difficult to descend to the fundamentals of technique and yet make it plain to the student that these are but the 'means' and not an end in themselves.

John F. Carlson
Rest assured that if you work every day at your art, using the materials nearest at hand, you will gradually discover such beauty in them that they will fill you with happiness.

John F. Carlson
We must have design in a picture even at the expense of truth. You are using nature for your artistic needs.

John F. Carlson
To the artist, the forest is an asylum of peace and dancing shadows.

John F. Carlson
It is the ability to determine consciously what it is that interests him, and why, that differentiates the artist from the art student.

John F. Carlson
Too much reality in a picture is always a disappointment to the imaginative soul. We love suggestion and not hard facts.

John F. Carlson
This art of conservation is strength, and makes the masterpiece a masterpiece. Otherwise, the man who simply brought all the different colors obtainable, and squeezed them out upon the canvas to give it 'full force,' would be the greatest master, instead of being merely extravagant.

John F. Carlson
You will learn to paint trees only by understanding them, their growth, their nature, their movement - and realizing that they are conscious living things. A tree seldom if ever encroaches upon the liberty of another tree. It never wastes its growth in unnecessary twistings.

John F. Carlson
The eye and soul are caressed in the contemplation of form and colour. The subtle changes of colour over a surface - transitions that are like music - are intangible in their reaction upon us. There is an immediate sensuous appeal!

John F. Carlson
If you train yourself in memory work, you fearlessly attack and rearrange your material, for you can retain your original impression.

John F. Carlson