Every Art, Like Our Own, Has In

Invention Strictly Speaking, Is Little More Than A New Combination Of Those Images Which Have Been Previously Gathered And Deposited In The Memory; Nothing Can Come From Nothing.

Art In Its Perfection Is Not Ostentatious; It Lies Hid And Works Its Effect, Itself Unseen.

The Spectator, As He Walks The Gallery, Will Stop, Or Pass Along. To Give A General Air Of Grandeur At First View, All Trifling, Or Artful Play Of Little Lights, Or An Attention To A Variety Of Tints Is To Be Avoided; A Quietness And Simplicity Must Reign Over The Whole Work, To Which A Breadth Of Uniform And Simple Color Will Very Much Contribute.

Our Exhibitions [the Royal Academy] Have... A Mischievous Tendency, By Seducing The Painter To An Ambition Of Pleasing Indiscriminately The Mixed Multitude Of People Who Resort To Them.

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... Be An Overmatch For The Greatest Painter That Ever Lived Who Should Be Debarred Such Advantages.