66 Quotes by Walter J. Phillips

However exquisite the contours or the colours of clouds, trees, rivers or hills, may be in themselves, they must be sacrificed if they do not conform with the general plan.

Drawing is the representation of form – the graphic expression of a visual experience.

While it is emotion that gives an impulse to the landscape painter, it is his style that inspires the critic’s praise, and his subject that inveigles the untutored beholder.

Difficulties will assail you only when you lack in concentration and persistence.

Tradition is a prop for social security.

Any subject is suitable provided it is of sufficient interest, but the design must be very carefully considered, and plenty of time and thought given to its construction.

Many cherish the idea that a photograph is an exact presentment of nature, and accept without question the paradox that a photograph cannot lie. Actually there never was a more unmitigated liar.

The student’s ambition should be to become a painter’s painter, rather than a popular painter. The approbation of fellow artists based on sympathy and understanding is manifestly better than the fickle or fast homage of the greater public.

Style is instinctive and few achieve it in a notable degree. Its development is not hastened by instruction. It comes or it doesn’t. It will take care of itself.