Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend. John Singer Sargent More Quotes by John Singer Sargent More Quotes From John Singer Sargent An artist painting a picture should have at his side a man with a club to hit him over the head when the picture is finished. John Singer Sargent artist should-have men Cultivate an ever continuous power of observation. Wherever you are, be always ready to make slight notes of postures, groups and incidents. Store up in the mind... a continuous stream of observations from which to make selections later. Above all things get abroad, see the sunlight and everything that is to be seen. John Singer Sargent sunlight groups mind I do not judge, I only chronicle. John Singer Sargent chronicles do-not-judge judging A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth. John Singer Sargent portraiture portraits mouths You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh. John Singer Sargent sketching drawing curiosity I hate to paint portraits! I hope never to paint another portrait in my life. Portraiture may be all right for a man in his youth, but after forty I believe that manual dexterity deserts one, and, besides, the color-sense is less acute. Youth can better stand the exactions of a personal kind that are inseparable from portraiture. I have had enough of it. John Singer Sargent hate men believe 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 color eye appreciation I don't dig beneath the surface for things that don't appear before my own eyes. John Singer Sargent beneath-the-surface surface eye A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth. John Singer Sargent portraits mouths littles If you begin with the middle-tone and work up from it toward the darks so that you deal last with your highest lights and darkest darks, you avoid false accents. John Singer Sargent tone lasts light It is certain that at certain times talent entirely overcomes thought or poetry. John Singer Sargent talent certain overcoming Cultivate an ever-continuous power of observation. Wherever you are, be always ready to make slight notes of postures, groups and incidents. John Singer Sargent posture incidents groups A person with normal eyesight would have nothing to know in the way of 'Impressionism' unless he were in a blinding light or in the dusk or dark. John Singer Sargent light dark way The habit of breaking up one's colour to make it brilliant dates from further back than Impressionism - Couture advocates it in a little book called 'Causeries d'Atelier' written about 1860 - it is part of the technique of Impressionism but used for quite a different reason. John Singer Sargent technique different book Make the best of an emergency. John Singer Sargent emergencies No small dabs of colour - you want plenty of paint to paint with. John Singer Sargent dabs paint want Mine is the horny hand of toil. John Singer Sargent horny toil hands Impressionism' was the name given to a certain form of observation when Monet, not content with using his eyes to see what things were or what they looked like as everybody had done before him, turned his attention to noting what took place on his own retina (as an oculist would test his own vision). John Singer Sargent vision eye names The thicker you paint, the more it flows. John Singer Sargent paint flow
