James Abbott McNeill Whistler

“The imitator is a poor kind of creature. If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer.”

“Art happens—no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.”

“Art happens—no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.”

“Art should be independent of all clap-trap - should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like.”

“I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime.”