Thomas Eakins Quotes

#1. How beautiful an old woman's skin is! All those wrinkles!

Thomas Eakins

#2. The brush is a more powerful and rapid tool than the point or the stump ... the main thing that the brush secures is the instant grasp of the grand construction of a figure.

Thomas Eakins

#3. Of course, it is well to go abroad and see the works of the old masters, but Americans ... must strike out for themselves, and only by doing this will we create a great and distinctly American art.

Thomas Eakins

#4. When you first commence painting everything is a muddle. Even the commonest colors seem to have the devil in them.

Thomas Eakins

#5. No man, and least of all myself, could ever disentangle the feelings that animated him.

Thomas Eakins

#6. Strain your brain more than your eye.

Thomas Eakins

#7. A teacher can do very little for a pupil and should only be thankful if he don't hinder him, and the greater the master, mostly the less he can say.

Thomas Eakins

#8. My honors are misunderstanding, pesecution and neglect, enhanced because unsought.

Thomas Eakins

#9. Enthusiasm for one's goal lessens the disagreeableness of working toward it.

Thomas Eakins

#10. The big artist keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools.

Thomas Eakins

#11. In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting.

Thomas Eakins

#12. I once painted a concert singer and on the chestnut frame I carved the opening bars of Mendelssohn's Rest in the Lord. It was ornamental unobtrusive and to musicians I think it emphasized the expression of the face and pose of the figure.

Thomas Eakins

#13. I have never discovered that the nude could be studied in any way except the way I have adopted. All the muscles must be pointed out. To do this all the drapery must be removed.

Thomas Eakins