//quote array quoteList = new Array(); quoteList[0] = "\"Happiness ... it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.\"
—Vincent Van Gogh
1853 – 1890"; quoteList[1] = "\"All the world is competent to judge my pictures except those who are of my profession.\"
—William Hogarth
1697 – 1764"; quoteList[2] = "\"So many splendid works of Titian, of Raphael and others ... have astonished me ... but as for the moderns, there is nothing of any worth.\"
—Peter Paul Rubens
1577 – 1640"; quoteList[3] = "\"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.\"
—Michelangelo
1475 – 1564"; quoteList[4] = "\"Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.\"
—Claude Monet
1840 – 1926"; quoteList[5] = "\"A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[6] = "\"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[7] = "\"Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.\"
—Edgar Degas
1834 – 1917"; quoteList[8] = "\"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.\"
—Pablo Picasso
1881 – 1973"; quoteList[9] = "\"I have generally found that persons who had studied painting least were the best judges of it.\"
—William Hogarth
1697 – 1764"; quoteList[10] = "\"I've done what I could as a painter and that seems to me to be sufficient. I don't want to be compared to the great masters of the past, and my painting is open to criticism; that's enough.\"
—Claude Monet
1840 – 1926"; quoteList[11] = "\"Rubens was no imitator. He was always Rubens.\"
—Eugčne Delacroix
1798 – 1863"; quoteList[12] = "\"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[13] = "\"If you have great talents, industry will improve them. If you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor; nothing is ever to be attained without it.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[14] = "\"It is important to express oneself, provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.\"
—Berthe Morisot
1841 – 1895"; quoteList[15] = "\"Genius is eternal patience.\"
—Michelangelo
1475 – 1564"; quoteList[16] = "\"If the artist sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting what he sees before him.\"
—Caspar David Friedrich
1774 – 1840"; quoteList[17] = "\"Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art.\"
—Dante Gabriel Rosetti
1828 – 1882"; quoteList[18] = "\"The mind of the painter should be like a mirror which always takes the colour of the thing that it reflects, and which is filled by as many images as there are things placed before it.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[19] = "\"Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations.\"
—Paul Cézanne
1839 – 1906"; quoteList[20] = "\"The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.\"
—Pablo Picasso
1881 – 1973"; quoteList[21] = "\"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishent rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[22] = "\"What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.\"
—Eugčne Delacroix
1798 – 1863"; quoteList[23] = "\"Talent! What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous work in the right way.\"
—Winslow Homer
1836 – 1910"; quoteList[24] = "\"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.\"
—Camille Pissarro
1830 – 1903"; quoteList[25] = "\"I am not a prince, but one who lives by the work of his hands.\"
—Peter Paul Rubens
1577 – 1640"; quoteList[26] = "\"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.\"
—Michelangelo
1475 – 1564"; quoteList[27] = "\"One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.\"
—Auguste Renoir
1841 – 1919"; quoteList[28] = "\"An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.\"
—James McNeill Whistler
1834 – 1903"; quoteList[29] = "\"Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.\"
—Pablo Picasso
1881 – 1973"; quoteList[30] = "\"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.\"
—Michelangelo
1475 – 1564"; quoteList[31] = "\"An artist's studio should be a small space because small rooms discipline the mind and large ones distract it.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[32] = "\"Confound the nose, there's no end to it!\"
—Thomas Gainsborough
1727 – 1788"; quoteList[33] = "\"The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently.\"
—Eugčne Delacroix
1798 – 1863"; quoteList[34] = "\"I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics.\"
—Claude Monet
1840 – 1926"; quoteList[35] = "\"How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[36] = "\"Color is an inborn gift, but appreciation of value is merely training of the eye, which everyone ought to be able to acquire.\"
—John Singer Sargent
1856 – 1925"; quoteList[37] = "\"The true test of all the arts is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[38] = "\"To paint is not to copy the object slavishly, it is to grasp a harmony among many relationships.\"
—Paul Cézanne
1839 – 1906"; quoteList[39] = "\"Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[40] = "\"I confess that I am, by natural instinct, better fitted to execute very large works than small curiosities. Everyone according to his gifts; my talent is such that no undertaking, however vast in size or diversified in subject, has ever surpassed my courage.\"
—Peter Paul Rubens
1577 – 1640"; quoteList[41] = "\"Mine is the horny hand of toil.\"
—John Singer Sargent
1856 – 1925"; quoteList[42] = "\"Learn diligence before speedy execution.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[43] = "\"I never saw an ugly thing in my life; for let the form of an object be what it may, light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.\"
—John Constable
1776 – 1837"; quoteList[44] = "\"The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.\"
—Eugčne Delacroix
1798 – 1863"; quoteList[45] = "\"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.\"
—Vincent Van Gogh
1853 – 1890"; quoteList[46] = "\"We are living in a time when life itself is possible only if one frees himself of every burden, like a swimmer in a stormy sea.\"
—Peter Paul Rubens
1577 – 1640"; quoteList[47] = "\"When you paint look at your work in a mirror; when you see it reversed, it will appear to you like some other painter's work and you will be a better judge of its faults.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[48] = "\"I have told myself a hundred times that painting—that is, the material thing called a painting—is no more than a pretext, the bridge between the mind of the painter and the mind of the spectator.\"
—Eugčne Delacroix
1798 – 1863"; quoteList[49] = "\"One gets into a state of creativity by conscious work.\"
—Henri Matisse
1869 – 1954"; quoteList[50] = "\"The productions of Rubens ... seem to flow with a freedom and prodigality, as if they cost him nothing. ... The striking brilliancy of his colors and their lively opposition to each other, the flowing liberty and freedom of his outline, the animated pencil, with which every subject is touched, all contribute to awaken and keep alive the attention of the spectator; awaken in him, in some measure, correspondent sensations, and make him feel a degree of that enthusiasm with which the painter was carried away.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[51] = "\"Nothing is more apt to deceive us than our own judgement of our work. We derive more benefit from having our faults pointed out by our enemies than from hearing the opinions of friends.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[52] = "\"In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting.\"
—Thomas Eakins
1844 – 1916"; quoteList[53] = "\"Our Exhibitions [The Royal Academy] have ... a mischievous tendency, by seducing the Painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who resort to them.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[54] = "\"O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519"; quoteList[55] = "\"Always lines, never forms! But where do they find these lines in Nature! For my part I see only forms that are lit up and forms that are not. There is only light and shadow.\"
—Francisco de Goya
1748 – 1828"; quoteList[56] = "\"How difficult it is to be simple.\"
—Vincent van Gogh
1853 – 1890"; quoteList[57] = "\"Make copies, young man, many copies. You can only become a good artist by copying the masters.\"
—Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
1780 – 1867"; quoteList[58] = "\"(Velazquez) is the painter of painters.\"
—Edouard Manet
1832 – 1883"; quoteList[59] = "\"Style in painting is the same as in writing—a power over materials, whether words or colours, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[60] = "\"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.\"
—Edgar Degas
1828 – 1882"; quoteList[61] = "\"I have taken a young wife of honest but middle-class family, although everyone tried to pursuade me to make a court marriage. ... I chose one who would not blush to see me take my brushes in hand.\"
—Peter Paul Rubens
1577 – 1640"; quoteList[62] = "\"The first virtue of a painting is that it be a feast for the eyes.\"
—Eugčne Delacroix
1798 – 1863"; quoteList[63] = "\"I have had three masters: Nature, Velazquez, and Rembrandt.\"
—Francisco de Goya
1748 – 1828"; quoteList[64] = "\"Grandeur of effect is produced by two different ways which seem entirely opposed to each other. One is by reducing the colors to little more than chiaroscuro ... and the other, by making the colors very distinct and forcible ... but still, the presiding principle of both those manners is simplicity.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[65] = "\"No one can be a painter unless he cares for painting above all else.\"
—Edouard Manet
1832 – 1883"; quoteList[66] = "\"Without atmosphere a painting is nothing.\"
—Rembrandt
1606 – 1669"; quoteList[67] = "\"By permitting himself every liberty [Rubens] carries you to heights that the greatest painters barely attain; he dominates, he overwhelms you, with so much liberty and audacity.\"
—Eugčne Delacroix
1798 – 1863"; quoteList[68] = "\"Make portraits of people in typical familiar poses being sure above all to give to their faces the same kind of expression as their bodies.\"
—Edgar Degas
1834 – 1917" quoteList[69] = "\"Painting is a strange business.\"
—J. M. W. Turner
1775 – 1851"; quoteList[70] = "\"By close inspection ... you will discover the manner of handling the artifices of contrast, glazing, and other expedients, by which good colorists have raised the value of their tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[71] = "\"All great artists have despised mere effects. By making Nature simpler, they made it more impressive.\"
—Auguste Renoir
1841 – 1919"; quoteList[72] = "\"One paints people like flowers in a vase, happy just to depict the exterior as it is–but what of the interior, the inner life? The soul is like music playing behind the veil of flesh; one cannot paint it, but one can make it heard ... or at least try to show that you have thought of it.\"
—Henri Fantin-Latour
1836 – 1904"; quoteList[73] = "\"Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.\"
—John Singer Sargent
1856 – 1925"; quoteList[74] = "\"The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.\"
—Michelangelo
1475 – 1564" quoteList[75] = "\"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.\"
—Edgar Degas
1834 – 1917" quoteList[76] = "\"A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth.\"
—John Singer Sargent
1856 – 1925" quoteList[77] = "\"Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.\"
—Michelangelo
1475 – 1564" quoteList[78] = "\"When I look back at my life, I compare it to one of those corks thrown into a river. It bobs along, then gets caught in a whirlpool, spins back, goes down again, surfaces, gets tangled into a weed, makes desperate efforts to free itself and then vanishes from sight altogether.\"
—Auguste Renoir
1841 – 1919"; quoteList[79] = "\"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519" quoteList[80] = "\"If painting weren't so difficult, it wouldn't be fun.\"
—Edgar Degas
1834 – 1917" quoteList[81] = "\"Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.\"
—Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519" quoteList[82] = "\"When you paint, try to put down exactly what you see. Whatever else you have to offer will come out anyway.\"
—Winslow Homer
1836 – 1910" quoteList[83] = "\"I would prefer the calm and sweetness of home with my chosen friends and studio, where I am king, where I forget all my troubles and regrets, where I am happy with the difficulties I have to overcome for my beautiful art, sometimes crowned with my own approval.\"
—Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
1780 – 1867"; quoteList[84] = "\"I have simply wished to assert the reasoned and independent feeling of my own individuality within a total knowledge of tradition.\"
—Henri Matisse
1869 – 1954"; quoteList[85] = "\"It is for the artist ... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.\"
—James McNeill Whistler
1834 – 1903"; quoteList[86] = "\"I cannot tell you what I suffer for want of seeing a good picture.\"
—Mary Cassatt
1844 – 1926"; quoteList[87] = "\"That which I look for while I paint is the form, the harmony, the value of the tones. Color comes afterwards.\"
—Camille Corot
1796 – 1875"; quoteList[88] = "\"Actually, you work with few colors. But they seem like a lot more when each one is in the right place.\"
—Pablo Picasso
1881 – 1973"; quoteList[89] = "\"I have neglected nothing.\"
—Nicolas Poussin
1594 – 1665"; quoteList[90] = "\"I may well have had some small measure of influence on the movement that led painters to study actual daylight and express the changing aspects of the sky with the utmost sincerity.\"
—Eugčne Boudin
1824 – 1898"; quoteList[91] = "\"The ordinary people have my sympathies—I must speak to them directly, draw my inspiration from them, find my livelihood from them. Because of that I have just embarked upon the wandering and independent life of a bohemian.\"
—Gustave Courbet
1819 – 1877"; quoteList[92] = "\"Treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone, with everything brought into proper perspective, so that each side of an object or plane is directed toward a central point.\"
—Paul Cézanne
1839 – 1906"; quoteList[93] = "\"Paintings that possess perfection should not be viewed in haste, but slowly examined, evaluating, and with understanding.\"
—Nicolas Poussin
1594 – 1665"; quoteList[94] = "\"The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it.\"
—Joshua Reynolds
1723 – 1792"; quoteList[95] = "\"There is only one master here—Corot. We are nothing compared to him, nothing.\"
—Claude Monet
1840 – 1926"; quoteList[96] = "\"I rarely have visitors, since I hate to be disturbed. My friends, though, are always welcome. They don't bother me, I can work even when it's noisy or while they're chatting. When I'm painting, I don't pay attention to anything else.\"
—William Bouguereau
1825 – 1905"; quoteList[97] = "\"I consider the whole world my home.\"
—Peter Paul Rubens
1577 – 1640"; quoteList[98] = "\"Painting stands for no other end than itself. The artist paints an apple or a head: it is simply a pretext for line and color, nothing more.\"
—Paul Cézanne
1839 – 1906"; quoteList[99] = "\"A portrait is a picture of a person with the nose a little longer.\"
—John Singer Sargent
1856 – 1925"; quoteList[100] = "\"What Rembrandt has alone or almost alone among painters [is] that tenderness in the gaze ... that heartbroken tenderness, that glimpse of a superhuman infinite that there seems so natural.\"
—Vincent van Gogh
1853 – 1890"; quoteList[101] = "\"I am never so disappointed in a piece of my work as when it meets with the approval of the public.\"
—William Merritt Chase
1849 – 1916"; quoteList[102] = "\"Flesh is the reason oil painting was invented.\"
—Willem de Kooning
1904 – 1997"; quoteList[103] = "\"My life has been nothing but a failure.\"
—Claude Monet
1840 – 1926"; quoteList[104] = "\"I maintain ... that painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and exisiting things.\"
—Gustave Courbet
1819 – 1877"; quoteList[105] = "\"One is born an artist. The artist is a man endowed with a special nature, with a particular feeling for seeing form and color spontaneously, as a whole, in perfect harmony. If one lacks that feeling, one is not an artist and will never become an artist; and it is a waste of time to entertain the possibility. This craft is acquired through study, observation, and practice; it can improve by ceaseless work. But the instinct for art is innate.\"
—William Bouguereau
1825 – 1905"; quoteList[106] = "\"I milked Impressionism for all it was worth and I came to the conclusion that I couldn't draw or paint.\"
—Auguste Renoir
1841 – 1919"; quoteList[107] = "\"What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject-matter ... something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue.\"
—Henri Matisse,
1869 – 1954"; //randomization var now = new Date(); var secs = now.getSeconds(); var raw_random_number = Math.random(secs); var random_number = Math.round(raw_random_number * (quoteList.length)); if (random_number == quoteList.length){random_number = 0} //set quote var quote1 = quoteList[random_number]; if (quote1 == undefined) {var quote1 ="";} var quote2 = quoteList[random_number+1]; if (quote2 == undefined) {var quote2 ="";} var quote3 = quoteList[random_number-1]; if (quote3 == undefined) {var quote3 ="";}