The True Test Of All The Arts

Every Art, Like Our Own, Has In Its Composition Fluctuating As Well As Fixed Principles. It Is An Attentive Inquiry Into Their Difference That Will Enable Us To Determine How Far We Are Influenced By Custom And Habit, And What Is Fixed In The Nature Of Things.

The Value And Rank Of Every Art Is In Proportion To The Mental Labor Employed In It, Or The Mental Pleasure In Producing It.

While I Recommend Studying The Art From Artists, Nature Is And Must Be The Fountain Which Alone Is Inexhaustible, And From Which All Excellences Must Originally Flow.

By Close Inspection... You Will Discover The Manner Of Handling The Artifices Of Contrast, Glazing, And Other Expedients, By Which Good Colorists Have Raised The Value Of Their Tints, And By Which Nature Has Been So Happily Imitated.

And He Who Does Not Know Himself Does Not Know Others, So It May Be Said With Equal Truth, That He Who Does Not Know Others Knows Himself But Very Imperfectly.