The mind of the artist

by Unknown

Michael Angelo.

METHODS OF WORK

LXXX

Every successful work is rapidly performed; quickness is only execrable when it is empty—small. No one condemns the swiftness of an eagle.

To him who knows not the burden of process—the attributes that are to claim attention with every epocha of the performance—all attempt at swiftness will be mere pretence.

Edward Calvert.

LXXXI

I am planning a large picture, and I regard all you say, but I do not enter into that notion of varying one's plans to keep the public in good humour. Change of weather and effect will always afford variety. What if Van der Velde had quitted his sea-pieces, or Ruysdael his waterfalls, or Hobbema his native woods? The world would have lost so many features in art. I know that you wish for no material alteration, but I have to combat from high quarters—even from Lawrence—the plausible argument that subject makes the picture.