Henry Fuseli Quotes

• Nature is a collective idea, and, though its essence exist in each individual of the species, can never in its perfection inhabit a single object.

  Henry Fuseli

  Nature, Essence, Ideas

  James Barry, John Opie, Henry Fuseli (1848). “Lectures on Painting”, p.495

  52 Copy quote

• Art, like love, excludes all competition and absorbs the man.

  Henry Fuseli

  Art, Men, Like Love

  1789 Aphorisms on Art, no.3 (published 1831).

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• Indiscriminate pursuit of perfection infallibly leads to mediocrity.

  Henry Fuseli

  Perfection, Mediocrity, Pursuit

  Henry Fuseli (1831). “Lectures. Aphorisms. A history of art in the schools of Italy”, p.111

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• Expression alone can invest beauty with supreme and lasting command over the eye.

  Henry Fuseli

  Eye, Expression, Command

  Henry Fuseli (1831). “Lectures. Aphorisms. A history of art in the schools of Italy”, p.96

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• When we idealize the real, we sacrifice to artistic fancy.

  Henry Fuseli

  Real, Sacrifice, Fancy

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• Our ideas are the offspring of our senses; we are not more able to create the form of a being we have not seen, without retrospect to one we know, than we are able to create a new sense. He whose fancy has conceived an idea of the most beautiful form must have composed it from actual existence.

  Henry Fuseli

  Beautiful, Philosophy, Ideas

  James Barry, John Opie, Henry Fuseli (1848). “Lectures on Painting”, p.358

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• Emulation embalms the dead; envy, the vampire, blasts the living.

  Henry Fuseli

  Envy, Vampire, Emulation

  Henry Fuseli (1831). “Lectures. Aphorisms. A history of art in the schools of Italy”, p.140

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• Life is rapid, art is slow, occasion coy, practice fallacious, and judgment partial.

  Henry Fuseli

  Art, Practice, Life Is

  Henry Fuseli (1831). “The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli”, p.63

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• Heaven and earth, advantages and obstacles, conspire to educate genius.

  Henry Fuseli

  Heaven, Genius, Earth

  Henry Fuseli (1831). “Lectures. Aphorisms. A history of art in the schools of Italy”, p.64

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• The price of excellence is labor, and time that of immortality.

  Henry Fuseli

  Excellence, Immortality, Labor

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• Ancient art was the tyrant of Egypt, the mistress of Greece and the servant of Rome.

  Henry Fuseli

  Art, Egypt, Rome

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• Art among a religious race produces reliques [sic]; among a military one, trophies; among a commercial one, articles of trade.

  Henry Fuseli

  Religious, Art, Military

  1789 Aphorisms on Art, no.149 (published 1831).

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• All actions and attitudes of children are graceful because they are the luxuriant and immediate offspring of the moment - divested of affectation and free from all pretense.

  Henry Fuseli

  Children, Attitude, Action

  Henry Fuseli (1831). “Lectures”, p.77

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• Selection is the invention of the landscape painter.

  Henry Fuseli

  Landscape, Invention, Painter

  1789 Aphorisms on Art, no.237, (published 1831).

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• The superiority of the Greeks seems not so much the result of climate and society, as of the simplicity of their end and the uniformity of their means.

  Henry Fuseli

  Mean, Simplicity, Greek

  1789 Aphorisms on Art, no.148 (published 1831).

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• Tintoretto attempted to fill the line of Michelangelo with color, without tracing its principle.

  Henry Fuseli

  Color, Principles, Lines

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• Raffael's drapery is the assistant of character, in Michelangelo it envelopes grandeur; it is in Reubens the ponderous robe of pomp.

  Henry Fuseli

  Character, Criticism, Envelopes

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