Painting

"A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, water colour, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century elites, mainly in England and France, and spread across the rest of Europe from the middle of the 18th-century, remaining highly popular until the development of daguerreo types and photography in the mid-19th century. They were especially valuable in introducing people to each other over distances; a nobleman proposing the marriage of his daughter might send a courier with her portrait to visit potential suitors. Soldiers and sailors might carry miniatures of their loved ones while traveling, or a wife might keep one of her husband while he was away. The first miniaturists used water colour to paint on stretched vellum. During the second half of the 17th century, vitreous enamel painted on copper became increasingly popular, especially in France. In the 18th century, miniatures were painted with water colour on ivory, which had now become relatively cheap. As small in size as 40 mm × 30 mm, portrait miniatures were often used as personal w:Mementosmementos or as jewellery or snuff box covers."

"You who are sitting before me have the power to change my consciousness into painting, poem, melody or anything else!"

"I accept the fact that the important painting of the last hundred years was done in France. American painters have generally missed the point of modern painting from beginning to end.. ..Thus the fact that good European moderns (European artists who lived in the U.S. because of the Nazi-regime, fh) are now here is very important, for they bring with them an understanding of the problems of modern painting. I am particularly impressed with their concept of the source of art being the unconscious. These idea interests me more than these specific artists do, for the two artists I admire most, Picasso and Miró, are still abroad."

"He best can paint them who shall feel them most."

"Lely on animated canvas stole The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul."

"The fellow mixes blood with his colors."

"I arrange my subject as I want it, then I go ahead and paint it, like a child. I want a red to be sonorous—to sound, like a bell; if it doesn't turn out that way, I put more reds or other colors till I get it. I am no cleverer than that. I have no rules and no methods; any one can look over my materials or watch how I paint—he will see that I have no secrets. I look at a nude; there are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver. Nowadays they want to explain everything. But if they could explain a picture it wouldn't be art. Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of a work of art? It must be indescribable and it must be inimitable. ...So in our Gothic architecture: each column is a work of art, because the old French monk who set it up and carved its capital did what he liked—not doing everything alike, as... when things are made by machinery or by rules, but each thing different—like the trees in the forest. The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion."

"It was Pissarro's sympathetic attitude to all sincere efforts which prompted Theo van Gogh to ask him... whether he could help his brother. After his first attack, Vincent had remained for one year at the Saint-Rémy Asylum... where he had been able to work between repeated spells of madness... [He] had asked Theo to find him a place near Paris... At Theo's request Pissarro was ready to take Vincent into his house... but Madame Pissarro was afraid [for] her children. Pissarro thereupon recommended his old friend, Dr. Gachet at Auvers, who declared himself willing to take care of Vincent. The latter came to Auvers in May 1890; he killed himself there in July of the same year... After the suicide... Theo van Gogh fell seriously ill; he was taken to Holland and died in January 1891. He was replaced at the gallery... M. Boussod, the owner, complained that Theo... had "accumulated appalling things by modern painters which had brought the firm to discredit. Indeed, Theo had left a stock of works by Degas, Gauguin, Pissarro, Guillaumin, Redon, Lautrec, Monet and others. According to M. Boussod only Monet's canvases were saleable..."

"Painting with all its technicalities, difficulties, and peculiar ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing."

"If it is the love of that which your work represents — if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that moves you — if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty, and human soul that moves you — if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fullness thereof."

"Look here, upon this picture, and on this."

"What demi-god Hath come so near creation?"

"I will say of it, It tutors nature: artificial strife Lives in these touches, livelier than life."

"The painting is almost the natural man: For since dishonour traffics with man's nature, He is but outside; pencill'd figures are Ev'n such as they give out."

"Wrought he not well that painted it? He wrought better that made the painter; and yet he's but a filthy piece of work."

"With hue like that when some great painter dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse."

"… ζωγραφίαν ποίησιν σιωπῶσαν προσαγορεύει [sc. ὁ Σιμωνίδης], τὴν δὲ ποίησιν ζωγραφίαν λαλοῦσαν."

"There is no such thing as a dumb poet or a handless painter. The essence of an artist is that he should be articulate."

"But who can paint Like nature? Can Imagination boast, Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?"

"Take a piece of glass of the size of a half sheet of royal folio paper, and fix it... between your eye and the object you wish to portray. Then move it away until your eye is two-thirds of a braccio away from the piece of glass, and fasten your head by means of an instrument in such a way as to prevent any movement of it whatsoever. Then close or cover up one eye, and with a brush or a piece of red chalk finely ground mark out on the glass what is visible beyond it; afterwards, copy it by tracing on paper from the glass, then prick it out upon paper of a better quality and paint it if you so desire, paying special attention to the aerial perspective."

"If you wish to thoroughly accustom yourself to correct and good positions for your fingers, fasten a frame or a loom divided into squares by threads between your eye and the nude figure which you are representing, and then make the same squares upon the paper where you wish to draw the said nude but very faintly. You should then put a pellet of wax on a part of the network to serve as a mark which as you look at your model should always cover the pit of the throat, or if he should have turned his back make it cover one of the vertebrae of the neck. ...The squares you draw may be as much smaller than those of the network in proportion as you wish your figure to be less than life size..."

"When you wish to see whether the general effect of your picture corresponds with that of the object represented after nature, take a mirror and set it so that it reflects the actual thing, and then compare the reflection with your picture, and consider carefully whether the subject of the two images is in conformity with both, studying especially the mirror. The mirror ought to be taken as a guide... you see the picture made upon one plane showing things which appear in relief, and the mirror upon one plane does the same. The picture is on one single surface, and the mirror is the same. ...if you but know well how to compose your picture it will also seem a natural thing seen in a great mirror."

"[I]n 1892, Cézanne executed one of his most important works, '... It was in this same year that I saw Cézanne's pictures for the first time. It was at Tanguy's... Père Tanguy, a color merchant on a small scale, was the benefactor of more than one unrecognized artist. He considered himself something of a "rebel" because he had not been shot down under the Commune by the party of law and order. In reality he was just a good old soul who extended credit to impecunious artists, and took a passionate interest in their work. But he had a marked predilection for those whom he called with respectful emphasis, "the gentlemen of the School": Guillaumin, Van Gogh, Pissarro, and Vignon, to mention only a few. To his way of thinking, being one of the "School" was equivalent to being "modern": which meant that one must banish "tobacco juice" from the palette forever, and paint "thick." But with good-hearted indulgence, he grudgingly bestowed his respect... upon the luckless painter who honestly sought to earn his daily bread with ivory black. And if the truth were known, Père Tanguy, in common with the very "philistines" whom he scorned, was convinced at the bottom of his heart that hard work and good behavior were not merely prerequisites, but indispensable elements of success. Accordingly, referring to the author [Cézanne] of a picture done with the forbidden "thin mediums," he said candidly, "He's not one of the 'School'; he'll have a hard time arriving. But he'll get there in the end; he never plays the races and he doesn't drink a drop!""

"They dropped into the yolk of an egg the milk that flows from the leaf of a young fig-tree, with which, instead of water, gum or gumdragant, they mixed their last layer of colours."

"In western India, Jainism, an Indian religion which expounded renunciation and asceticism, gave rise to unique miniatures which flowered into the school of Rajasthani painting. The miniature paintings commenced with the patronage of the Jain merchants of Gujarat in the fourteenth century. The painting they commissioned were of illustrations of Jain Royalty and deities which were painted on dried palm leaves and bound in wooden covers...when paper was introduced in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, as somewhat large format became available...They were part of the illustrated texts which were preserved in temple libraries. The illustrated text inspired much of the later Hindu miniature paintings."

"The themes of Mithuna and Maithuna continued in paintings created during the Mughal and British rules (15-19th CE), mainly in Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. The erotic themes of the Hindu miniature paintings represented loves of divine couples."

"In such miniature paintings the theme of lyric poetry was depicted with strong confident lines, throbbing colours, and bold patterns, but controlled workmanship. The lively landscape created a standard for these outstanding illustrations."

"The ornamental borders framing the miniature paintings seem to be inspired by the decorative designs on the Mughal carpets."

"I would I were a painter, for the sake Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, A fitting guide, with reverential tread, Into that mountain mystery."

"I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint."

"The form of my painting is the content."

"Le Bain... has proved as defiant in execution as it had been in conception... [H]e abandoned , a technique perfected by Leonardo da Vinci and exploited by successful Salon painters... Manet... did away with most... half-tones—the transitions between highlights and shadows—such that his figures... looked harshly lit. ...Since an optical illusion makes light colors advance and dark ones recede, most artists painted a dark undercoat... la sauce.., a transluscent mixture of linseed oil, turpentine and often bitumen... Manet... after The Absinthe Drinker, working instead on canvases treated with off-white primers... gave Le Bain a greater luminosity... at the expense of... spatial recession [depth]. ...Painters were usually trained to create a subtle relief on the surface... Dark colors, such as... for shadows, were spread very thin while highlights were "loaded" or "impasted"... in thick layers... [T]ogether with the darker undercoat... whites would advance and the darks retreat. ...Manet boldly disregarded this practice in Le Bain... Though a few... as Gèricault and Courbet, had... experimented with this technique, the boldness of Manet's application witnessed... a new direction in art."

"Monet and Renoir... concentrated... on the waters of the Seine sparkling... dissolving solid forms into dazzling patches of color. Monet... excelled at... light shimmering on the waves. He worked on the same pale ground favored by Manet but... highlighted... with vibrant pigments, some... newly invented... added... in small commas and dashes. Advances in chemistry... meant nineteenth-century painters possessed a much wider range of pigments... [M]any painters... [had] learned to tone down their works by coating them with transparent brownish glazes made from... ingredients... as bitumen. ...Painters who challenged this prejudice against color... notably Delacroix... found themselves reviled by conservative critics. ...The coruscating reflections in [Monet's] La Grenouillère canvases owed much to his use of pigments such as chromium oxide green and cobalt violet. The former... produced from a... reaction involving salts and , was manufactured... in 1862. Cobalt violet [was] invented in 1859 by... Jean Salvétat... Monet blended it with to create a shimmering water... He would eventually... regard this... pigment as an essential for capturing... light and shade: "I have finally discovered the color of the atmosphere... It is violet." ...Monet might never have discovered the true nature of the atmosphere without... chemists..."

"Ottoman miniature painting gave up the warmth, the whimsy, the theatricality, and the multiple meanings of Iranian art in favor of realism, which was also expressed in Ottoman maps, fortress plans and geographies."

"The only good copies are those which exhibit the defects of bad originals."

"The picture that approaches sculpture nearest Is the best picture."

"One question conditions the dynamics and balance of color in the composition of a painting: whence the source of light?"

"Vain is the hope by colouring to display The bright effulgence of the noontide ray Or paint the full-orb'd ruler of the skies With pencils dipt in dull terrestrial dyes."

"Painting responded to the plague-darkened vision of the human condition provoked by repeated exposure to sudden, inexplicable death. Tuscan painters reacted against Giotto's serenity, preferring sterner, hieratic portrayals of religious scenes and figures. The "Dance of Death" became a common theme for art; and several other macabre motifs entered the European repertory."

"I'll get an inspiration and start painting; then I'll forget everything, everything except how things used to be and how to paint it so people will know how we used to live."

"I mix them with my brains, sir."

"What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he is a painter, ears if he's a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he's a poet, or even, if he's a boxer, only some muscles? Quite the contrary, he is at the same time a political being constantly alert to the horrifying, the passionate or pleasing events of the world, shaping himself completely in their image... No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy."

"Look for the kind of nature that suits your temperament. The motif should be observed more for shape and color than for drawing. There is no need to tighten the form which can be obtained without that. Precise drawing is dry and hampers the impression of the whole, it destroys all sensations. Do not define too closely the outlines of things; it is the brushstroke of the right value and color which should produce the drawing. In a mass, the greatest difficulty is not to give the contour in detail, but to paint what is within. Paint the essential character of things, try to convey it by any means whatsoever, without bothering about technique.—When painting, make a choice of subject, see what is lying at the right and what at the left, and work on everything simultaneously. Don't work bit by bit but paint everything at once by placing tones everywhere, with brushstrokes of the right color and value, while noticing what is alongside. Use small brushstrokes and try to put down your perceptions immediately. The eye should not be fixed on one point, but should take in everything, while observing the reflections which the colors produce on their surroundings. Work at the same time upon the sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis and unceasingly rework until you have got it. Cover the canvas at the first go, then work at it until you can see nothing more to add. Observe the aerial perspective as well, from the foreground to the horizon, the reflection of the sky, of foilage. Don't be afraid of putting on color, refine the work little by little.—Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression you feel. Don't be timid in front of nature: one must be bold, at the risk of being deceived and making mistakes. One must have only one master—nature; she is the one always to be consulted."

"Rais'd of themselves, their genuine charms they boast And those who paint 'em truest praise 'em most."

"In general, just as painters in working from models constantly gaze at their exemplar and thus strive to transfer the expression of the original to their own artistry, so too he who is anxious to make himself perfect in all the kinds of virtue must gaze upon the lives of the saints as upon statues, so to speak, that move and act, and must make their excellence his own by imitation."

"As certain as the Correggiosity of Correggio."

"In the Seljuk period, figurative themes of Turco-Mongol character are some what apparent in all the minor arts in both Iran and Iraq. The true Persian miniature, however, which is indisputably the most perfect figurative art on the soil of Islam, did not come into the world until after the conquest of Iran by the Mongols, and more precisely under the rule of the Īl-Khāns (1256). It is modeled upon Chinese painting with its perfect blend of calligraphy and illustration...The link between writing and image remains fundamental to Persian miniatures, which, belongs, as a whole, to the art of books; all the famous miniaturists were calligraphers before becoming painters."

"From the mingled strength of shade and light A new creation rises to my sight, Such heav'nly figures from his pencil flow, So warm with light his blended colors glow. * * * * * * The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring."

"Pisarro explained the Neo-Impressionist theories to his dealer Durand-Ruel in a letter written towards the end of 1886. He stressed the importance of Seurat's role as inventor of the theory, and described the new function of colour, which replaced the mechanical mixtures of pigments with optical mixtures, where colours partially fused in the spectator's eye. The component parts of each optical colour mixture were to be painted in separate touches so that they retained their colour purity. When colours were mixed on the palette, they could only be combined with close neighbors on the colour circle, so as to avoid excessive dulling of the hues. Pissaro noted that the great colour theorists who had influenced Seurat's thinking were Chevreul, the Scott Maxwell, and the American Ogden Rood. Optical colour mixtures, they argued, were more luminous than mixed pigments."

"Lautrec was greatly influenced by the techniques, style and subject matter of Degas, who was a close neighbor between 1887 and 1891. ...Like Degas, Lautrec experimented with painting with which was called peinture à l'essence. In Degas' method, oil was drawn out of his colours by placing them on blotting paper. Then the chalky paint was diluted with turpentine and applied like a wash to his support. Because the turpentine spirit evaporated quickly, the colours dried rapidly, so that the paint surface could be reworked and built up without enormous delays. Unlike paint applied thinly in glazes, with this technique the colour dries mat, and has a chalky surface only thinly and sparely coloured."