Training...

Paul Cézanne to Charles Camoin, 13 September 1903

"Couture used to say to his pupils: 'keep good company, that is: go to the Louvre. But after having seen the great masters who repose there, we must hasten out and by contact with nature revive within ourselves the instincts, the artistic sensations which live in us.' ... What shall I wish you: good studies made after nature, that is the best thing." *

Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo, 3 September 1882

"It had struck me how firmly the saplings were planted in the ground -- I started on them with the brush, but because the ground was already impasted, brush strokes simply vanished into it. Then I squeezed roots and trunks in from the tube and modelled them a little with the brush.
Well, they are in there now, springing out of it, standing strongly rooted in it.
In a way I am glad that I never learned painting. In all probability I would then have learned to ignore such effects as this. Now I can say to myself, this is just what I want. If it is impossible, it is impossible, but I'm going to try it even though I don't know how it ought to be done." *

Thomas Eakins, March 1868 [taken from Metropolitan Museum show July 2002]

"The big artist... keeps a sharp eye on Nature and steals her tools. He learns what she does with light the big tool and then color then form and appropriates them to his own use" *Sloan

John Sloan in Gist of Art, 1939

"Every art student should paint the simple solids: that is, spheres, cubes, cylinders, pyramids, and cones. ... Thomas Eakins always insisted on his students painting simple studies of such things as an egg, a lump of sugar, or a piece of chalk to try to get the texture." *Sloan

see Cézanne's comment to Emile Bernard below.

Robert Henri in The Art Spirit, 1923

"No knowledge is so easily found as when it is needed.
    Teachers have too long stood in the way; have said: 'Go slowly - you want to be an artist before you've learned to draw!'
    Oh! those long and dreary years of learning to draw! How can a student after the drudgery of it, look at a man or an antique statue with any other emotion than a plumbob estimate of how many lengths of head he has.
    One's early fancy of man and things must not be forgot." *Henri

of course, both Henri and Sloan believed that good drawing was the foundation of good painting, but Henri wanted to warn his students against sacrificing one's soul to technique.

Robert Henri in The Art Spirit, 1923

"It is harder to see than it is to express. The whole value of art rests in the artist's ability to see well into what is before him." ... "The model will serve equally for a Rembrandt drawing or for anybody's magazine cover. A genius is one who can see. The others can often 'draw' remarkably well." ... "Those who get their technique first, expecting sight to come to them later, get a technique of a very ready-made order." *Henri

Execution details...

Eugene Delacroix in his Journal, 10 August 1850

"Always use the sketch to feel your way, and go ahead confidently when it comes to executing the picture." *

Eugene Delacroix in his Journal, 5 May 1852

"A picture should be laid-in as if one were looking at the subject on a grey day, with no sunlight or clear-cut shadows. Fundamentally, light and shadows do not exist. Every object presents a colour-mass, having different reflections on all sides. Suppose a ray of sunshine should suddenly light up the objects in this open-air scene under grey light, you will then have what are called lights and shadows but they will be pure accidents." *

Delacroix on light...

Mary Cassatt to Rose Lamb, 30 November 1892

"One thing I have learned, the absolute necessity for system in painting. Prepare your palette. ... Delacroix had a most elaborate palett & it is very evident the old masters had & did not indulge in one happy go lucky style." *

Paul Cézanne to Emile Bernard, 15 April 1904

"May I repeat what I told you here: treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, everything brought into proper perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed towards a central point. Lines parallel to the horizon give breadth ... lines perpendicular to this horizon give depth. But nature for us men is more depth than surface, whence the need to introduce into our light vibrations, represented by the reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of blueness to give the feel of air." *

Cézanne on structure...

Jackson Pollock to William Wright, 1950

WW: Mr. Pollock, isn't it true that... your technique is important and interesting only because of what you accomplish by it?
JP: I hope so. Naturally, the result is the thing -- and -- it doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. *Johnson

On color...

Henri Matisse in Notes of a Painter, published in La Grande Revue, 1908

"My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory; it is based on observation, on feeling, on the experience of my sensibility. Inspired by certain pages of Delacroix, an artist like Signac is preoccupied with complementary colors, and the theoretical knowledge of them will lead him to use a certain tone in a certain place. But I simply try to put down colors which render my sensation." *

For more on Matisse's personal approach to art, see his page in the glossary.

Van Gogh also has some wonderful thoughts on color in his letter to Theo, 30 April 1885.

Max Beckman from his lecture On My Painting

"Color, as the strange and magnificent expression of the inscrutable spectrum of Eternity, is beautiful and important to me as a painter; I use it to enrich the canvas and to probe more deeply into the object. Color also decided, to a certain extent, my spiritual outlook, but it is subordinated to light and, above all, to the treatment of form. Too much emphasis on color at the expense of form and space would make a double manifestation of itself on the canvas, and this would verge on craft work. Pure colors and broken tones must be used together, because they are the complements of each other."*

Working from the mind versus nature...

Eugene Delacroix in his Journal, 26 April 1852

"You must have complete freedom of imagination when you are painting a picture. The living model, compared with the figure which you have created and harmonized with the rest of the composition, is apt to confuse you and to introduce a foreign element into the ensemble of the picture." *

see Cézanne's quote below

Paul Cézanne to Zola, 19 October 1866

"But you know all pictures painted inside, in the studio, will never be as good as those done outside. When out-of-door scenes are represented, the contrasts between the figures and the ground is astounding and the landscape is magnificent. I see some superb things and I shall have to make up my mind only to do things out-of-doors." *

While Delacroix was one of the few painters Cézanne actually respected (see glossary for more on this), they could not have disagreed more here. Delacroix was happier in a studio working from his head whereas Cézanne could not stress enough the need to work from nature.

Robert Henri to John Sloan, 14 September 1919

"But anywhere -- even in a studio working from the model to get the thing which hangs together there comes a time when it is better to have the model sit down behind you instead of in front so that you can go ahead.
   Anyhow, all work that is worth while has got to be memory work -- even with a model before you in the quiet light of the studio. There has got to come a time when you have what you want to know from the model, when the model had better be sitting behind you than before -- and unless such a time as this does come its not likely the work will get below the surface." *Perlman

Sloan, in his own writings, very much agreed with this. He believed that by always facing the model, the artist worried too much on "looks like". See his comment in Painting Style.

Paul Cézanne to to Emile Bernard, 12 May 1904

"The artist must scorn all judgment that is not based on an intelligent observation of character. He must beware of the literary spirit which so often causes the painter to deviate from his true path -- the concrete study of nature -- to lose himself too long in intangible speculation. The Louvre is a good book to consult but it must be only an intermediary. The real and immense study to be undertaken is the manifold picture of nature." *

Of course, Sloan wrote, "I don't believe in art for art's sake. I think that very often a literary motive may inspire the finest art, in fact almost always." *Sloan

Henri Matisse in Notes of a Painter, published in La Grande Revue, 1908

"A distinction is made between painters who work directly from nature and those who work purely from imagination. Personally, I think neither of these methods must be preferred to the exclusion of the other. Both may be used in turn by the same individual, either because he needs contact with objects in order to receive sensations that will excite his creative facility, or because his sensations are already organized." *

Painting Style continues excerpts along these lines (mind vs. nature and imitation vs. expression).

Mastery...

Eugene Delacroix in his Journal, 27 January 1852

"The way in which the work has been planned, and certain exaggerated forms, show that Rubens was working like a craftsman practising the trade he knew and not for ever trying to improve upon it. The flow of his thought was uninterrupted because he was dealing with something that he understood. He clothed his thoughts in images that were readily accessible to him, translating the sublime ideas that came to him in such a variety into forms which superficial people call monotonous, not to mention their other complaints. But a profound thinker who has delved deeply into the secrets of art is not disturbed by such 'monotony', for a continual return to the same forms show the imprint of a great master; it is also the instinctive action of a wise and practised hand. It is this which gives the impression that compositions were produced smoothly and easily, a feel that adds greatly to the power of the work." *

This quote at first disturbed me since it seemed to question the need to constantly push one's boundaries, but I think that Delacroix is speaking to the benefits of mastering technique so that all one's energies can be focused on the subject matter. Delacroix, himself, was always exploring, although in his later years he was thankful that it took him less time and energy to execute certain details. John Sloan also commented that Rubens "learned his trade and practised it like a bricklayer" *Sloan

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