The Real Character Of A Man Is

The Value And Rank Of Every Art Is In Proportion To The Mental Labor Employed In It, Or The Mental Pleasure In Producing It.

The First Degree Of Proficiency Is, In Painting, What Grammar Is In Literature, A General Preparation For Whatever The Student May Afterward Choose For More Particular Application. The Power Of Drawing, Modeling, And Using Colors, Is Very Properly Called The Language Of The Art.

Those Who, Either From Their Own Engagements And Hurry Of Business, Or From Indolence, Or From Conceit And Vanity, Have Neglected Looking Out Of Themselves, As Far As My Experience And Observation Reach, Have From That Time Not Only Ceased To Advance, And Improve In Their Performances, But Have Gone Backward. They May Be Compared To Men Who Have Lived Upon Their Principal, Till They Are Reduced To Beggary, And Left Without Resources.

If Deceiving The Eye Were The Only Business Of The Art... The Minute Painter Would Be More Apt To Succeed. But It Is Not The Eye, It Is The Mind Which The Painter Of Genius Desires To Address.

The Greatest Man Is He Who Forms The Taste Of A Nation; The Next Greatest Is He Who Corrupts It.