45 Quotes by William Morris Hunt

You are to draw not reality, but the appearance of reality!

Strive for simplicity! Don't have the face a checkerboard of tints! Use such colors as nature uses, but not try to keep them distinct! Your work may be called monotonous, but one tone is better than many which do not harmonize.

Inspiration is nothing without work.

Don't talk of what you are 'going to do!' Do it!

Give up the idea of 'color' for awhile! Consider masses - values, only... One dark and one light place in every picture.

Art teaches you the philosophy of life, and if you can’t learn it from art, you can’t learn it at all. It shows you that there is no perfection. There is light, and there is shadow. Everything is in half tint.

Strive for simplicity! Don’t have the face a checkerboard of tints! Use such colors as nature uses, but not try to keep them distinct! Your work may be called monotonous, but one tone is better than many which do not harmonize.

I don’t like persuaded sitters. I never could paint a cat if the cat had any scruples, religious, superstitious, or otherwise, about sitting.

Painting is the only universal language. All nature is creation’s picture book. Painting alone can describe every thing which can be seen, and suggest every emotion which can be felt. Art reaches back into the babyhood of time, and is man’s only lasting monument.