"Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art." -- Tom Stoppard

"Emile Bernard quoted [Cezanne] as saying: 'We should not be content with strict reality . . . . The transposition that a painter makes with a personal vision gives to the representation of nature a new interest; he unfolds, as a painter, that which has not yet been said; he translates it into absolute terms of painting. That is to say, something other than reality'.....To understand where Cezanne adhered to and where he departed from the real world, it is useful to think of his reading of the model as a kind of dismantling process. When the various components of the "strict reality" were, in a sense, spread before him, he could select those components most expressive of the meaning of the scene and unite them in a composition." -- From book: The World of Cezanne, 1839-1906 by Richard W. Murphy and the Editors of Time-Life Books, NY, 1968

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." - Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi - 1893-1986 - American biochemist

"The best solutions are found by paring things down to their essence." -- Francie Randolph - Contemporary American Artist

"When words leave off, music begins." -- Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) - German poet and critic

"Art communicates experience that has no direct linguistic signs in spoken language." -- Alexander Alland, Jr. in his book, The Artistic Animal: An Inquiry into the Biological Roots of Art - Anchor Books, NY, 1977

"Simply accumulating skills may produce nothing more than a competent painting. Nevertheless, it is surely better to make a competent, uninspired painting than to make an incompetent, uninspired one." -- Colleen Browning - From her book: Working out a Painting, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1988

"There is great danger...in the arrogance of thinking your vision is so powerful that you don't need to know how to paint." -- Colleen Browning - From her book: Working out a Painting, Watson-Guptill Publications, NY, 1988

"I think painters should have the ambition to be great artists but also the humility to accept criticism with grace." -- Colleen Browning - From her book: Working out a Painting, Watson-Guptill Publications, NY, 1988

"Structure is a property of all sensual experience." -- Alexander Alland, Jr. - From his book: The Artistic Animal: An Inquiry into the Biological Roots of Art, Anchor Books, Garden City, NY, 1977

"Aesthetic experience is a heightened form of structural experience in which the imagination roams through a structured space." -- Alexander Alland, Jr. - From his book: The Artistic Animal: An Inquiry into the Biological Roots of Art, Anchor Books, Garden City, NY, 1977

"Style enhances aesthetic power. .It does this by interacting with the structure of a work. .Style lies on the surface while structure is more or less deeply buried, depending on its complexity and subtlety. .When the two interact, the aesthetic impact is immeasurably enriched." -- Alexander Alland, Jr. - From his book: The Artistic Animal: An Inquiry into the Biological Roots of Art, Anchor Books, Garden City, NY, 1977

"A painting that is well composed is half finished."
-- Pierre Bonnard

"The picture in order to move us must never merely remind us of life, but must acquire a life of its own." -- Lucian Freud (German-born British painter, born 1922)

"Artist. .A person skilled in the practice of an art in which creative activity is dependent upon aesthetic judgment, imagination, and originality." -- Encyclopedia of the Arts, editors Dagobert D. Runes and Harry G. Schrickel, Philosophical Library, NY, 1946

"Artisan. .A person skilled in the techniques of an art or mechanical pursuit, but whose work does not demand creation, invention, or originality." -- Encyclopedia of the Arts, editors Dagobert D. Runes and Harry G. Schrickel, Philosophical Library, NY, 1946

"Art is not the discovery of Reality -- whatever Reality may be, and no human being can possibly know. .It is the organization of chaotic appearance into an orderly and human universe." -- Aldous Huxley in his essay, "Art and Religion: The View from India," in the book: Aldous Huxley: On Art & Artists, essays edited by Morris Philipson, Meridian Books, Inc., 1960

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures." -- Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)