John Sloan Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

It takes a great deal of strong personality to survive the art school training. Hard nuts that the art schools can't crack and devour get through and become artists.

John Sloan
Then there is this idea that the world owes you a living. Here is a little thought about that. It isn't particularly logical but it makes my point. You were paid when you were born, with the privilege of living. Death is all that is coming to you. Life came to you when you were born.

John Sloan
Color is like music. The palette is an instrument that can be orchestrated to build form.

John Sloan
I have nothing to teach you that will help you to make a living.

John Sloan
In the habit of watching every bit of human life I can see about my windows, but I do it so that I am not observed at it.

John Sloan
People who take things too literally don't get much of anything from my teaching. By never saying anything I mean, I say a great deal. I never mean anything I say under oath. I never mean exactly what I say. Not even this. You have to read between the words.

John Sloan
Study the great brush drawings of the Chinese and Japanese... When we try to imitate their conventions for perspective, form and texture we lose the content, because those artists were part of an ancient tradition. Our tradition changes rapidly, our schools of thought come to fruition quickly and decay again. We see differently.

John Sloan
Drawing is the cornerstone of the graphic, plastic arts. Drawing is the coordination of line, tone, and color symbols into formations that express the artist's thought.

John Sloan
Have a special interest, a positive prejudice about some clump of trees or one particular knoll, an excitement about them can spread through the whole composition, and so fire the rest of the things that you are only mildly interested in.

John Sloan
In the work of Seurat, you can see the dots of neutral colors carrying the form and then the dots of more intense color that make the color texture. It is a totally different principle that than of the Impressionists who used broken color to imitate visual effect.

John Sloan
Draw places you have seen from memory. I used to paint things I had glimpsed through windows while riding in the elevated train.

John Sloan
A piece of drapery is like a necktie, hot stuff to paint, and one of the easiest things for a painter to kid himself into thinking he can do. Don't be fooled by the color. Go after the shape and character. Hew the forms together with colored tones.

John Sloan
The purpose of subject matter is to veil technique. The great artist uses the cloak of resemblance to hide the means.

John Sloan
When you draw a crowd of people in a street or room or landscape, decide whether you want to say that the people dominate the place or that the place is more important than the people.

John Sloan
Assimilate all you can from tradition and then say things in your own way.

John Sloan