Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Painting

• Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Pain, Teaching

• Art is a jealous mistress; and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Music, Art, Husband

  1860 The Conduct of Life,'Wealth'.

• Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, Poetry, Silence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2415, Delphi Classics

• There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, Grief, Reality

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.85, Courier Corporation

• There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Philosophy, Work

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.353

• Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring,
  With sudden passion languishing,
  Teaching barren moors to smile,
  Painting pictures mile on mile,
  Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths
  Whence a smokeless incense breathes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Daughter, Spring, Teaching

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1854). “Poems”, p.163

• The masters painted for joy, and knew not that virtue had gone out of them. They could not paint the like in cold blood. The masters of English lyric wrote their songs so. It was a fine efflorescence of fine powers.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Song, Blood, Joy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.92, Harvard University Press

• I suppose an entire cabinet of shells would be an expression of the whole human mind; a Flora of the whole globe would be so likewise, or a history of beasts; or a painting of all the aspects of the clouds. Everything is significant.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Clouds, Expression

• Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called "silent poetry," and poetry "speaking painting." The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Writing, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.48, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

• A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Tree, Becoming

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.244, Library of America

• I have heard that stiff people lose something of their awkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think, sculptureand painting have an effect to teach us manners, and abolish hurry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Thinking, People

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.399

• The picture waits for my verdict; it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claim to praise.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Waiting, Painting, Praise

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Natural Abundance: Ralph Waldo Emerson's Guide to Prosperity”, p.201, Simon and Schuster

• Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness,to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dance, Art, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Jean Ferguson Carr (1987). “The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.212, Harvard University Press

• The best picture makes us say, I am a painter also.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Painting, Best Picture, Painter

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1972). “Early Lectures: 1838-1842”

• But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace withoutgrandeur, and itself not new but derivative; a vase of fair outline, but empty,--which whoso sees, may fill with what wit and character is in him, but which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all beholders.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, America, Clouds

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.96, Library of America

• Teach the children! It is painting in fresco.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Children, Painting

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