Words of Wisdom: William Morris Hunt Part 2

The way to criticise is to do something better yourself; to show what you mean. It's the producers we care for, not for men who go about abusing other people.

Did you ever feel that your life-time was not long enough for all the work that you wanted to do? That's the good of teaching other people. You get your life continued in that way.

Be frank and fearless about your work! Get rid of the timidity that makes you fear to hurt your drawing.

"I'm afraid of losing my drawing!" - Why, you seem to think that your drawing is good, you are so anxious to keep it. Throw it away! Drawing is not one of the "lost arts." If you do lose it, you can find it.

Remember that there must be an accent to everything: to a landscape, a head, or a loaf of bread. There must be one light. If you make your reflected lights too strong, you object becomes concave.

You can sit and look at that face , and learn just as much as if you had charcoal, oil, water-color, varnish, and frame. A great saving of time and materials! Look at it for a half hour every day, and you could paint it.

Painting is a great joy and privilege to you. Take it as such, and don't make a labor and duty out of it.

If you want a rule for painting, try to represent the color at once, frankly and fully. If you can't do this, put in every object in a frotté of local color. If this seems right in any place, put it in solidly. Make it suggest the color, and then paint it with a full brush.

... real criticism should be the judging of works by its qualities, and not by its faults.

I find that people who have really touched the bottom of any one subject are very modest, even upon that; and much more so in regard to giving opinions upon subjects of which they really know nothing.

Better be frankly wrong than doubtfully right.

Oh, this is a funny world; and how we dawdle and fool at nine o'clock in the morning, when we think we have time enough! At five P.M. we desire nothing so much as to paint.

You would all paint better if you did n't think so much of what other people will say about your work.

You cannot suit everybody; so you had better suit yourself, - if you can.

When you are out-of-doors and see something that you like, put it on canvas in your mind. Think just how you would do it. That will often help you more than if you really did it.

(on working hard) - The fellows who have succeeded have sweated more than others.

A teacher who can only teach is no artist. A teacher should work and produce something, by which others are taught and encouraged.

Don't dwell too much on what you have done! Go on, and don't paint each sketch as if it were to be the last thing you were to do in life. Believe that you are going to make hundreds of them, and go on to the next.

Nobody will ever paint who keeps another from painting.

"Love something, and paint it!" Don't be threatened by a sense of duty, or coaxed by a love of praise, into painting things that you don't like!

Memory sketch every day.

We cannot have two passions. No painter can paint and love money.

But let us paint our opinion on canvas, and not on the newspapers.

Don't try to paint better than any one else! Try to have other people paint better than you. That will help you paint. We go on only by being among our superiors.

Let me tell you a secret. Don't tell anybody, but the best way to learn to draw is, To draw only what you see!

Emerson says, 'It is better to write a poor poem than a good criticism.'

I might easily hide my knowledge from you... or I might selfishly fear that you would do something better than I; when you know that I have always said that I would n't teach if I did n't think that some of you were going some day to do better work than I can do. How many men are there down town who are hoping that some clerk is going to be smarter than they are? It is only in art that the workers help each other.

"But all artists would not do it," said a member of the class.

Then they are not true artists. If a man is so selfish as to wish to keep what he knows to himself, that man has n't any soul to put on canvas.

The only way to arrive anywhere is to be modest. If we ever expect to be anything we must keep our future open, so that we may learn from what is best.