Topics · Books, Art & Culture
Wisdom about art & design.
What people have learned about art & design the hard way, and what the classics said about it first.
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- Speak from experience. Say what you lived and what you learned. Advice without a story is easy to ignore.
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From the library
Energy is eternal delight.
The painter should aim at universality.
There is no wealth but life.
Invention is one of the great marks of genius.
If music be the food of love, play on.
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
Who thinks his great achievements poor Shall find his vigour long endure. Of greatest fulness, deemed a void, Exhaustion ne'er shall stem the tide. Do thou what's straight still crooked deem; Thy greatest art still stupid seem, And eloquence a stammering scream.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The painter strives and competes with nature.
When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock.
Colour's five hues from th' eyes their sight will take; Music's five notes the ears as deaf can make; The flavours five deprive the mouth of taste; The chariot course, and the wild hunting waste Make mad the mind; and objects rare and strange, Sought for, men's conduct will to evil change.
What is now proved was once only imagined.
The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror.
Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures.
A master of the art of war has said, 'I do not dare to be the host (to commence the war); I prefer to be the guest (to act on the defensive). I do not dare to advance an inch; I prefer to retire a foot.' This is called marshalling the ranks where there are no ranks; baring the arms (to fight) where there are no arms to bare; grasping the weapon where there is no weapon to grasp; advancing…
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
He is a poor disciple who does not excel his master.
He who in (Tao's) wars has skill Assumes no martial port; He who fights with most good will To rage makes no resort. He who vanquishes yet still Keeps from his foes apart; He whose hests men most fulfil Yet humbly plies his art. Thus we say, 'He ne'er contends, And therein is his might.' Thus we say, 'Men's wills he bends, That they with him unite.' Thus we say, 'Like Heaven's his ends, No sage…
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
Painting is adorned with infinite possibilities which sculpture cannot command.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
The painter who works from nature should have a window, which he can raise and lower.