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William Morris Hunt Biography

William Morris Hunt (March 31, 1824 – September 8, 1879), American painter, was born at Brattleboro, Vermont, to Jane Maria (Leavitt) Hunt and Hon. Jonathan Hunt, who raised one of the preeminent families in American art. William Morris Hunt was the leading painter of mid-19th-century Boston, Massachusetts.

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William Morris Hunt Quotes

You can always draw as well as you know how to. I flatter myself that I feel more than I express on canvas; but I know that is not so.

Canvas, Express, Flatter, Knowledge, Wells

Imagination comes in after we have experience.

Experience, Imagination

Painting is the only universal language. All nature is creation's picture book. Painting alone can describe every thing which can be seen, and suggest every emotion which can be felt. Art reaches back into the babyhood of time, and is man's only lasting monument.

Art, Back, Book, Lasting, Men, Reaches

Believe that time is going to help you do what you want.

Believe, Help, Time, Time Management, Want

It's no easy matter to paint a background. I venture to say that the old painters had more difficulty with their grounds than with their figures. You know the story of Vandyke brought to Rubens with this recommendation: 'He already knows how to paint a background. ' 'That is more than I can do!' was the reply.

Already, Brought, Matter, Stories, Story, Venture

You can't do a fine thing without having seen fine examples.

Example, Examples, Fine Things, Having, Masters, Seen

Give up the idea of 'color' for awhile! Consider masses - values, only. . . One dark and one light place in every picture.

Dark, Giving Up, Light, Picture

Don't talk of what you are 'going to do!' Do it!

Advice, Talk

Elaboration is not beauty, and sand-paper never finished a piece of bad work.

Bad, Beauty, Finished, Paper, Pieces

It's impossible to make a picture without values. Values are the basis. If they are not, tell me what is the basis.

Impossible, Bases, Ifs, Picture, Values

How are we going to make painters by lecturing to them? We are going to make questioners, doubters, and talkers. We are going to make painters by painting ourselves, and by showing the paintings of others. By working frankly from our convictions, we are going to make them work frankly from theirs.

Conviction, Doubters, Make, Painting, Paintings, Working

Beauty is that little something that fills the whole world, and is contained neither in a single straight nose, a long eyelash, nor a blue mountain. Some see it in a leg of mutton, others in a compound fracture; and to expect others to accept one's own definition of it is as absurd as to expect all humanity to use the same toilet-brush.

Blue, Contained, Definition, Eyelashes, Fills, Long

Children should learn to draw as they learn to write, and such a mystery should not be made of it. They should be encouraged, not flattered. . . then [later in life] double the effort is required to get the facility which might have been gained insensibly.

Children, Flattered, Insensibly, Later In Life, Writing

There's lots of fun in this world, after all. And if there isn't, there is in the next. And we're going there, sure.

Fun, Lots, Next, World

Most of us live for the critic, and he lives on us. He doesn't sacrifice himself. He gets so much a line for writing a criticism. If the birds should read the newspapers, they would all take to changing their notes. The parrots would exchange with the nightingales, and what a farce it would be!

Bird, Lives, Nightingales, Sacrifice, Writing

Let me give you a few simple rules for learning to draw. First, see of what shape the whole thing is. Next, put in the line that marks the movement of the whole. Don't have more than one movement in a figure; you can't patch parts together. Simple lines; then simple values. Establish the fact of the whole. Is it square, oblong, cube, or what is it?

Giving, Parts, Simple, Square, Squares

There is force and vitality in a first sketch from life which the after-work rarely has. You want a picture to seize you as forcibly as if a man had seized you by the shoulder! It should impress you like reality!

Man, Men, Rarely, Reality, Seize, Vitality

I don't like persuaded sitters. I never could paint a cat if the cat had any scruples, religious, superstitious, or otherwise, about sitting.

Cat, Paint, Religious, Sitters, Sitting

Inspiration is nothing without work.

Inspiration, Nothing, Work

Strive for simplicity! Don't have the face a checkerboard of tints! Use such colors as nature uses, but not try to keep them distinct! Your work may be called monotonous, but one tone is better than many which do not harmonize.

Color, Colors, Nature, Simplicity, Strive, Trying

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