Quotes About Interpretation

The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.

Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood

Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there are hope.

Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all.

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is simply expression, as Henry says, that gives reality to things.

It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter, who on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.

All bad art is the result of good intentions.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.

There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

I treated Art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the colored canvas, reveals himself.

the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.

every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.

I am quite incapable of understanding how any work of art can be criticized from a moral standpoint. The sphere of art and the sphere of ethics are absolutely distinct and separate.

The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it.

Was there anything so real as words?

Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour - that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him.

artists have sex but art has none

Anything approaching an explanation is always derogatory to a work of art.