Painters From England

"To sum up then, the best solution for ensuring world peace is the widespread promotion of contraception or abortion. Abortion is a drastic measure and can involve serious emotional disturbance. Furthermore, once a zygote has been formed by the act of fertilization it constitutes a new individual member of society, and its destruction is, in effect, an act of aggression, which is the very pattern of behaviour that we are attempting to control. Contraception is obviously preferable, and any religious or other ‘moralizing’ factions that oppose it must face the fact that they are engaged in dangerous war-mongering."

"Artists like cats; soldiers like dogs."

"There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones."

"I am a zoologist and the naked ape is an animal. He is therefore fair game for my pen and I refuse to avoid him any longer simply because some of his behaviour patterns are rather complex and impressive. My excuse is that, in becoming so erudite, Homo sapiens has remained a naked ape nevertheless; in acquiring lofty new motives, he has lost none of the early old ones. This is frequently a cause of some embarrassment to him, but his old impulses have been with him for millions of years, his new ones only a few thousand at the most—and there is no hope of quickly shrugging off the accumulated genetic legacy of his whole evolutionary past. He would be a far less worried and more fulfilled animal if only he would face up to this fact. Perhaps this is where the zoologist can help."

"Sexual behaviour in our species goes through three characteristic phases: pair-formation, pre-copulatory activity, and copulation, usually but not always in that order. The pair-formation stage, usually referred to as courtship, is remarkably prolonged by animal standards, frequently lasting for weeks or even months. As with many other species it is characterized by tentative, ambivalent behaviour involving conflicts between fear, aggression and sexual attraction. The nervousness and hesitancy is slowly reduced if the mutual sexual signals are strong enough."

"Clearly, the naked ape is the sexiest primate alive. To find the reason for this we have to look back again at his origins. What happened? First, he had to hunt if he was to survive. Second, he had to have a better brain to make up for his poor hunting body. Third, he had to have a longer childhood to grow the bigger brain and to educate it. Fourth, the females had to stay put and mind the babies while the males went hunting. Fifth, the males had to cooperate with one another on the hunt. Sixth, they had to stand up straight and use weapons for the hunt to succeed. I am not implying that these changes happened in that order; on the contrary they undoubtedly all developed gradually at the same time, each modification helping the others along. I am simply enumerating the six basic, major changes that took place as the hunting ape evolved. Inherent in these changes there are, I believe, all the ingredients necessary to make up our present sexual complexity."

"She only ovulates at one point during the cycle, so that mating at all other times can have no procreative function. The vast bulk of copulation in our species is obviously concerned, not with producing offspring, but with cementing the pair-bond by providing mutual rewards for the sexual partners. The repeated attainment of sexual consummation for a mated pair is clearly, then, not some kind of sophisticated, decadent outgrowth of modern civilization, but a deep-rooted, biologically based, and evolutionarily sound tendency of our species."

"It is interesting that although it still occurs in a number of minor cultures today, all the major societies (which account for the vast majority of the world population of the species) are monogamous. Even in those that permit polygamy, it is not usually practiced by more than a small minority of the males concerned. It is intriguing to speculate as to whether its omission from almost all the larger cultures has, in fact, been a major factor in the attainment of their present successful status."

"The evidence of prehistoric remnants combined with comparative data from living carnivores and other living primates has given us a picture of how the naked ape must have used this sexual equipment in the distant past and how he must have organized his sex life. The contemporary evidence appears to give much the same basic picture, once one has cleaned away the dark varnish of public moralizing."

"All the higher forms of animal life are aware of at least some of the other species with which they share their environment. They regard them in one of five ways: as prey, symbionts, competitors, parasites, or predators. In the case of our own species, these five categories may be lumped together as the ‘economic’ approach to animals, to which may be added the scientific, aesthetic and symbolic approaches. This wide range of interests has given us an inter-specific involvement unique in the animal world."

"Ingres, a pupil of David, taught his students that draughtsmanship was of more importance than colour. " A thing well drawn," he said, " is always well enough painted.""

"Impressionism owes its birth to Constable ; and its ultimate glory, the works of Claude Monet, is profoundly inspired by the genius of Turner."

"This Mr. Dewhurst has not understood the Impressionist movement in the very least. All he sees in it is a technical method... He also says that before going to London we knew nothing whatsoever about light; but we have studies that prove the contrary. He omits the influence of , Corot, all the 18th-century painters, Chardin most of all. But what he fails to realize is that while Turner and Constable were of service to us, they confirmed our suspicion that those painters had not understood 'The Analysis of Shadows', which in the case of Turner are always a deliberate effect, a plain dark patch. As to the division of tones, Turner confirmed us its value as a method, but not as a means of accuracy or truth to nature. In any case, the 18th century was our tradition. It seems to me that Turner too, had looked at Claude Lorrain. I am even inclined to think there is a picture by Turner, 'Sunset', hung side by side with a Claude."

"The world of art was less fortunate. Many of the younger men barely lived through the first flush of youth. Destroying Death is the worst enemy to the arts."

"Since then I have endeavoured, by precept and by example, to preach the doctrine of Impressionism, particularly in England, where it is so little known and appreciated."

"Although the great revolution of 1793 changed the whole face of France both politically and socially, it failed to emancipate the twin arts of painting and literature. In each case one tradition was succeeded by another, and nearly forty years elapsed before the new spirit completely broke through the barriers set up by a past generation."

"In 1891 a student in Paris, I found myself face to face with a beautiful development of landscape painting, which was quite new to me. "Impressionism," together with its numerous progeny of eccentric offshoots, was at the time causing a great furore in the schools. Curiously enough I had been charged with copying Monet's style long before I had seen his actual work, so that my conversion into an enthusiastic Impressionist was short, in fact, an instantaneous process."

"I remember distinctly, during the summer of 1901, at Les Andelys-on-Seine, that upon two days and for two hours in the afternoons of those days all Nature, animate and inanimate, bore the aspect of things seen under a strong glare of violet light, exactly as though a tinted glass were suspended between the sun's rays and the earth. The effect was most curious and disturbing. Nature appears to be toneless and flat. Highlights and shadows are attenuated almost to extinction, whilst in this dull purple glare the heat became more intense than ever, possibly through lack of wind, for all was still."

"From the earliest days of my pupilage to art I had been instinctively drawn towards the paintings of Turner, Corot, Constable, Bonington, and Watts, with an intense admiration for their manner in viewing, and methods of re-creating, nature upon their canvases ; and in later years I had been fascinated by the works of more modern artists, such as La Thangue, , Edward Stott, and Robert Meyerheim."

"Those Englishmen who are taunted with following the methods of the French Impressionists, sneered at for imitating a foreign style, are in reality but practising their own, for the French artists simply developed a style which was British in its conception."

"Words paint to the imagination but every man forms the thing to himself in his own way."

"From sheer indolence great mistakes are often made in re-presentation."

"The gentleness, so utterly removed from insipidity, of Raphael, is a thing of which true taste never tires."

"Painting is that pleasant amusement being one of the means whereby we convey ideas to each other."

"To me the prevailing tone of Rembrandt's mind, as shown in his art, is serenity. Where the subject allows him, his natural disposition seems always tranquil. He is the painter of repose."

"Writing letters with me is not a thing that can be done at odd scraps of time. I must sit down, compose myself & collect all of my thoughts."

"In picture we never die,never decay or grow older"

"The pleasure that painting as a dumb art give us , is like what we have from misic, its beautiful forms, vlour and harmony are to the eye what sounds and the harmony are to the ear."

"Turner was a very different man to Constable, yet quite like him in one respect, namely, his entire reliance on a guide within himself, always a characteristic of genius."

"Turner did not talk well, and never talked of his own art, or of the art of others."

"It was impossible however not to like Turner, there was something so social and cordial in his nature and I believe him to have had a excellent heart."

"Turner will be placed in that class whose genius is such that we can never praise him too much or blame him too much."

"Turner is my great favourite of all the painters here. He combines the highest poetical imagination with an exquisite feeling for all the truth and individuality of nature; and he has shown that the ideal, as it is called, is not the improving of Nature, but the selecting and combining objects that are most in harmony and character with each other."

"The theatre gives us representations of things , and there we see a sort of moving, speaking pictures but they are transient whereas painting remains and is always at hand."

"No one mirrors his age clearer than the artist, for here is the living moment made concrete, the particular made general."

"We're all awash in a sea of blood, and the least we can do is wave to each other."

"Every living person has certain feelings about the world around him. It is these feelings, common to all men, which are the raw materials of the artist's inspiration. This he must 'translate', into the structure of an art form, whether music, poetry or painting. The problem of the painter is this 'translation'; that is, he has to create some arrangement of shape, line and colour which convey the idea or the emotion which moved him to paint this particular picture."

"All my life I have felt most strongly against social distinction of any kind. I have at all time tried to paint to the best of my ability and would only hope that any remembrance of me when I'm am gone will be base on my work."

"I look upon human beings as automatons..because they all think they can do what they want but they can't.They are not free.No one is"

"You don't need brains to be a painter, just feelings"

"I see lots of people everywhere, one lot going one way and the other lot going in the opposite way, as a rule."

"I don't pretend to be a gentleman, but I am entitled to paint what I see"

"A street is not a street without people..the composition was incidental to the people."

"I am not an artist just someone who paints."

"Without knowing what it was, I had an instinctive feeling that the time had come to drop industrials (paintings) .Now I feel more strongly than ever that the figures stand on their own two feet."

"You cannot teach painting because everyone's colour sense is different. But drawing..you either get it right or wrong. You can tell whether people have drawn from life from their pictures."

"I've a one track mind, sir. Poverty and gloom. Never a joyous picture of mine you'll see.Always gloom. I never do a jolly picture."

"I don't care tuppence for what they do in London in the art world. It doesn't matter to me. I don't think of it. All I am concerned with is doing my own thing in my own way.. as well as I can."

"An artist can't produce great art unless he has a philosophy.He can't say something unlee he has something to say."

"Speaking generally Art endevours to reveal what is true and needs to be free. All things said regarding Art are subject to contradiction. An artist whose integrity sustains his strength to make no compromise with expediency is never degraded. His life work will resemble the integrating character of the primaries in the Spectrum. At the beginning, of the middle period, and at the end… I approach drawing solely for structure. I am perhaps the most unpopular artist in England – and only because I am draughtsman first and painter second. Drawing demands a theory of approach, until good drawing becomes habit – it denies all rules. It requires high discipline… Drawing demands freedom, freedom demands liberty to expand in space – this is progress. By the extension of democracy – good draughtsmanship is – Democracy’s visual sign. To draw with integrity replaces bad habits with good, youth preserved from corruption. The hand works at high tension and organises as it simplifies, reducing to barest essentials, stripping all irrelevant matter obstructing the rapidly forming organisation which reveals the design. This is drawing."