finished
pictures. Works deserving this character never were produced, nor ever
will arise, from memory alone; and I will venture to say, that an artist
who brings to his work a mind tolerably furnished with the general
principles of art, and a taste formed upon the works of good artists,
in short, who knows in what excellence consists, will, with the
assistance of models, which we will likewise suppose he has learnt the
art of using, be an over-match for the greatest painter that ever lived
who should be debarred such advantages.

_Reynolds._

LXXIII

Do not imitate; do not follow others--you will always be behind them.

_Corot._

LXXIV

Never paint a subject unless it calls insistently and distinctly upon
your eye and heart.

_Corot._

LXXV

I should never paint anything that was not the result of an impression
received from the aspect of nature, whether in landscape or figures.

_Millet._

LXXVI

You must interpret nature with entire simplicity and according to your
personal sentiment, altogether detaching yourself from what you know of
the old masters or of contemporaries. Only in this way will you do work
of real feeling. I know gifted people who will not avail themselves of
their power. Such people seem to me like a billiard-player whose
adversary is constantly giving him good openings, but who makes no use
of them. I think that if I were playing with that man, I would say,
"Very well, then, I will give you no more." If I were to sit in
judgment, I would punish the miserable creatures who squander their
natural gifts, and I would turn their hearts to work.

_Corot._

LXXVII

Sensation is rude and false unless _informed_ by intellection; and,
however delicate be the touch in obedience to remote gradation, yet
knowledge of the genus necessarily invests the representation with
perspicuous and truthful relations that ignorance could not possibly
have observed. Hence--Paint what you see; but know what you see.

_Only paint what you love in what you see_, and discipline yourself to
separate this essence from its dumb accompaniments, so that the accents
fall upon the points of passion. Let that which must be expressed of the
rest be merged, syncopated in the largeness of the _modulation_.

Boldly dare to omit the impertinent or irrelevant, and let the features
of the passion be modulated in _fewness_.

Not a touch without its meaning or its significance throughout the
courses. There i