And now for my own system and the reasons why I have abandoned all other
systems. And in giving them to you I want to repeat what I said in the beginning
of this course, that I do not ask you students to follow in my footsteps if your
predilections, training, and innate consciences lead you to a different view of
treatment. Many of you may not like my work at all, and you certainly have a
large following, especially among the younger men and women who have advanced
ideas. Many of you hold to the opinion that water-color men should stick to their trade
and not encroach upon the oil painters in their technic. And many of you may at
heart prefer, nay, even delight in, the broad,oil paintings for sale, loose washes of the early English
school.
There may be a few of you, however, who have open minds free from prejudice
and free from the traditions of the past, and who are dissatisfied with the want
of "virility," if I may so express it, shown in pictures painted on white paper,
and with successive washings, and may accordingly see something in my own
methods which may encourage you to follow in the path which I have cleared and
which I humbly trust will lead to infinitely better results than I have so far
achieved.
And in this you must have the courage of your opinions and be prepared for
criticisms. Those who are against me are more numerous than those who are for me
and my methods. where to buy oil paintings
Only last month a distinguished New York daily paper, in reviewing a recent
exhibition, said:
"There really is nothing left to say about Mr. Smith's water-colors. They
appear with such unfailing regularity and are always so much the same. Nothing
in the present collection will surprise those who know his work—and who does
not? The artist's facility is undiminished, his industry untiring, but to look
for any fresh inspiration in his work or a hint of anything but a conventional
vision has long been a vain hope." oil paintings on canvas for sale
I should be discouraged if I thought that this was the last word on my work.
I know better, because I am making a collection of such criticisms, showing the
rating of our several painters. These summings up of mine will be extremely
valuable as marking the changing taste of the public; for I have never supposed
that either ill will or downright ignorance formed the basis of current
criticism. The critics are merely expressing the trend of public opinion. It is
not new to our age. Diaz, so one story goes, once came stumping (he had lost
one leg) into Millet's cottage at Barbizon fresh from the Salon. Millet had been
painting nudes—the most exquisite bits of flesh-painting seen for many a day,
and as modest as Chabas "September Morn."
"What do they say of my things?" asked Millet.
"That you are still painting naked women," replied Diaz.
Millet was horrified.
"I paint naked women! I never painted one in my life."
Hence "The Angelus" and "The Sowers" and the other masterpieces of clothed
peasants.
In 1825 Constable writes in answer to a scurrilous attack made on his
so-called "puerile" efforts: abstract art oil paintings
"Remember the great were not made for me, nor was I for the great. My limited
and abstractive art is to be found under every hedge and in every lane, and therefore
nobody thinks it worth while picking up. My art flatters nobody by imitation: it
courts nobody by smoothness: it tickles nobody by politeness: it is without
either fol-de-rol or fiddle-de-dee. How can I hope to be popular?"
Ruskin's attack on Whistler is another case in point. A lawsuit followed and
Whistler recovered one farthing damages, and had the effrontery to dangle it
under the great critic's nose that same night at a reception where they both
met, followed by the remark:
"Beat you, old man."
Even Mr. Thackeray went out of his way in his "art notes" to belittle and
ridicule Sir Thomas Lawrence because he lacked what he called the "virility of
his progenitors and associates." oil paintings for sale online
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