"Within a composite of influences the mystic charm of art is born. It comes into being in the abstract interval between a thought and a reality and no one, not even the artist, can remeasure the influence that caused it." - Edgar A. Payne (1883 - 1947) in Composition of Outdoor Painting
"But in what teacher of art have you such faith? Certainly not in me; for, as I told you at first, I know well enough it is only because you think I can talk, not because you think I know my business, that you let me speak to you at all. If I were to tell you anything that seemed to you strange, you would not believe it, and yet it would only be in telling you strange things that I could be of use to you." - John Ruskin (1819 - 1900) in Sesame and Lilies
"Let us suppose, however, that the landscape before [the artist] is especially expressive of repose. As he sketches, he will give particular prominence to the lines and objects that suggest repose, and either subordinate, or sacrifice, or omit entirely all lines and objects whose presence tends to weaken or destroy the reposeful effect." - John Rummell and E. M. Berlin in Aims and Ideals of Representative American Painters
"In Italian, chiaroscuro means light (chiaro) dark (oscuro) - and notice how language here reflects technique, as the end of the first word melds into the beginning of the second, creating a seamless transition between "light" and "dark." " - Henry M. Sayre in Writing about Art
"If you are representing a white body let it be surrounded by ample space, because as white has no colour of its own it is tinged and altered in some degree by the colour of the objects surrounding it." - Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)
