Every good painter paints what he is.
A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
By sculpture I mean that which is done by subtracting.
History is a graveyard of aristocracies.
The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
I have never lacked courage to undertake any design, however vast in size.
The valor of the vanquished makes the glory of the victor.
Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses.
He is every inch a king.
I have no love of reasonable painting.
Subject matter has nothing to do with the harmony of color.
Art is the science of freedom.
The earliest art may have been linked to beliefs about fertility, sun worship, reverence for the dead, or sympathetic magic (as an aid to hunting) but, whatever their role, artworks were functional, ritual tools, designed to assist with the business of survival.
Classical Greek art portrayed gods and heroes as idealized figures, placing perfect proportion at the heart of its aesthetic philosophy. Roman art built on this tradition to commemorate military victories and the triumphs of emperors, but preferred its own sharp realism.
The Renaissance, or literally “rebirth,” heralded an age of exploration, scientific enquiry, and artistic expression inspired by classical values of rationality and beauty. Before this time, artists had been viewed as craftsmen rather than intellectuals. They occupied a relatively low status in society and their names rarely survived into posterity.
A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
Societal changes are often reflected in by changes in artistic style. Prior to the 17th century, for example, the most influential patrons of Western art came either from the Church or from royal and aristocratic circles. However, when the Dutch maritime empire began to flourish, it gave rise to a wealthy new mercantile class. These middle-class citizens loved art, but had no interest in grandiose scenes of warfare or classical mythology. Nor was there room in their modest town-houses for the huge canvases for palaces and mansions. Instead, they looked for pictures that mirrored their own experiences: genre scenes (images of daily life), still-lifes, landscapes, and — their particular passion — flowers. Artists rose to meet this demand, ushering in the golden age of Dutch art.
The ideas behind styles of art may spring from a plan or manifesto; sometimes they are deliberately fostered by members of an artistic “movement”; but often they coalesce around a group of artists in a certain time and place, and are only named and analyzed by later critics.
It has been impossible to foresee which artists or styles would find a place in history. Thomas Couture gained celebrity status for his historical paintings in 19th-century Paris but is all but forgotten today, while conversely 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer sank into obscurity after his death and was only rediscovered in the 1860s.
Raphael’s paintings from the early 1500s were publicized throughout Europe by the engravings of Raymond. The prints helped to make Raphael the most celebrated artist of his time and indirectly had a wider impact on the course of art history, because Raphael’s work became the model for the teachings of the new academies and art schools.
Discoveries and advances that at first seem insignificant can have huge impacts on artistic practice. The introduction of portable paint-tubes in the 1840s, for example, initially appeared little more than a refinement of the old containers, but it enabled the Impressionists to develop one of the defining features of their working method: painting in the open air.