The mission of art is to represent nature; not to imitate her.—W. M. Hunt.
True art is not the caprice of this or that individual, it is a solemn page either of history or prophecy; and when, as always in Dante and occasionally in Byron, it combines and harmonizes this double mission, it reaches the highest summit of power.—Mazzini.
Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.—Schiller.
Art does not imitate nature, but it founds itself on the study of nature—takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, namely, the mind and the soul of man.—Bulwer-Lytton.
The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury.—Schopenhaufer.
He who seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius, as he must needs paint for other minds and not for his own.—Washington Allston.
In art, form is everything; matter, nothing.—Heinrich Heine.
Strange thing art, especially music. Out of an art a man may be so trivial you would mistake him for an imbecile, at best a grown infant. Put him into his art, and how high he soars above you! How quietly he enters into a heaven of which he has become a denizen, and, unlocking the gates with his golden key, admits you to follow, an humble, reverent visitor.—Bulwer-Lytton.
Art does not imitate, but interpret.—Mazzini.
The artist is the child in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl. Ah! the world, that cruel step-mother, beats the poor child the harder to make him shed more pearls.—Heinrich Heine.