John French Sloan Quotes

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• Every good picture leaves the painter eager to start again, unsatisfied, inspired by the rich mine in which he is working, hoping for more energy, more vitality, more time - condemned to painting for life.

  John French Sloan

  Energy, Vitality, Painting

  73 Copy quote

• Art is the response of the living to life. It is therefore the record left behind by civilization.

  John French Sloan

  Art, Civilization, Records

  14 Copy quote

• Color is like music. The palette is an instrument that can be orchestrated to build form.

  John French Sloan

  Color, Form, Instruments

  18 Copy quote

• Be sensitive to your mistakes. Put it on the wall for a couple of weeks. It may be that you can learn more from the study of your own work than from others.

  John French Sloan

  Wall, Couple, Mistake

  10 Copy quote

• Don't be afraid to borrow. The great men, the most original, borrowed from everybody.

  John French Sloan

  Men, Imitation, Borrowed

  11 Copy quote

• When you draw a crowd of people in a street or room or landscape, decide whether you want to say that the people dominate the place or that the place is more important than the people.

  John French Sloan

  People, Important, Crowds

  15 Copy quote

• Artists are the only people in the world who really live. The others have to hope for heaven.

  John French Sloan

  Artist, People, Heaven

  Recalled on his death,7 Sep 1951, and quoted in the Smithsonian, Apr1 988.

  13 Copy quote

• Art is the result of a creative impulse derived out of a consciousness of life.

  John French Sloan

  Art, Creative, Consciousness

  14 Copy quote

• Assimilate all you can from tradition and then say things in your own way.

  John French Sloan

  Way, Originality, Tradition

  7 Copy quote

• I always think of shade as being full of light. That is why I like to use the word shade rather than light and shadow. Shade seems to play over the thing, envelop it, better define it, while shadow seems to fall on the thing and stain the surface with darks.

  John French Sloan

  Fall, Thinking, Light

  11 Copy quote

• Nature is what you see plus what you think about it.

  John French Sloan

  Thinking, Plus

  7 Copy quote

• In the hands of a master, light and shade is one of the great qualities of art.

  John French Sloan

  Art, Light, Hands

  9 Copy quote

• The artist seeks to record his awareness of order in life.

  John French Sloan

  Artist, Order, Records

  7 Copy quote

• Draw places you have seen from memory. I used to paint things I had glimpsed through windows while riding in the elevated train.

  John French Sloan

  Memories, Riding, Window

  7 Copy quote

• The purpose of subject matter is to veil technique. The great artist uses the cloak of resemblance to hide the means.

  John French Sloan

  Mean, Artist, Technique

  12 Copy quote

• Form your own color concept of things in nature. I have no rules for fine color to give you.

  John French Sloan

  Color, Giving, Fine

  10 Copy quote

• A good drawing has immense vitality because it is explanatory. In a good drawing even its faults have become virtues.

  John French Sloan

  Drawing, Vitality, Faults

  7 Copy quote

• Most art students are generous till it comes to squeezing their colour on the palette... Many pictures haven't become works of art simply because the artist tried to save a nickel's worth of colour.

  John French Sloan

  Art, Generosity, Students

  8 Copy quote

• Originality is a quality that cannot be imitated. The technique of the language, on the other hand, is something that belongs to all who can understand it.

  John French Sloan

  Hands, Quality, Technique

  11 Copy quote

• Consistency is the quality of a stagnant mind.

  John French Sloan

  Consistency, Mind, Quality

  18 Copy quote

• Painting is drawing, with the additional means of color.

  John French Sloan

  Mean, Color, Drawing

  7 Copy quote

• Line is the most powerful device of drawing.

  John French Sloan

  Powerful, Drawing, Lines

  11 Copy quote

• Study the great brush drawings of the Chinese and Japanese... When we try to imitate their conventions for perspective, form and texture we lose the content, because those artists were part of an ancient tradition. Our tradition changes rapidly, our schools of thought come to fruition quickly and decay again. We see differently.

  John French Sloan

  School, Artist, Drawing

  7 Copy quote

• You can be a giant among artists without ever attaining any great skill. Facility is a dangerous thing. When there is too much technical ease the brain stops criticizing. Don't let the hand fall into a smart way of putting the mind to sleep.

  John French Sloan

  Smart, Fall, Sleep

  7 Copy quote

• The subject may be of first importance to the artist when he starts a picture, but it should be of least importance in the finished product. The subject is of no aesthetic significance.

  John French Sloan

  Artist, May, Firsts

  8 Copy quote

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