James Whistler Quotes

• An artist’s career always begins tomorrow.

  James Whistler

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• I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

  James Whistler

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  Tags in Maintain

• If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.

  James Whistler

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  Tags in People, Conversation

• I am not arguing with you – I am telling you.

  James Whistler

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• The rare few, who, early in life have rid themselves of the friendship of the many.

  James Whistler

  Topics in Friendship, Life

• Work alone will efface the footsteps of work.

  James Whistler

  Topics in Work

• The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

  James Whistler

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• It takes a long time for a man to look like his portrait.

  James Whistler

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  Tags in Man

• You shouldn’t say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you’re perfectly safe.

  James Whistler

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  Tags in Perfect

• A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared.

  James Whistler

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• A life passed among pictures makes not a painter – else the policeman in the National Gallery might assert himself.

  James Whistler

  Topics in Life

• The imitator is a poor kind of creature. If the man who paints only the tree, or a flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer.

  James Whistler

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  Tags in Creature

• Poor lawyers, like poor paintings, are dear at any price.

  James Whistler

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• An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

  James Whistler

  Topics in Art, Vision

  Tags in Artist

• I can’t tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.

  James Whistler

  Topics in Genius

  Tags in Because, Hereditary

James Whistler (15)

Birth:	1834
Death:	17th July, 1903
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Painter

About

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, USA. He was an American painter. His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail. His most famous painting is "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1", commonly known as Whistler's Mother, the revered and oft-parodied portrait of motherhood.

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Today's Anniversary - 29th January

Births

• 1970 - Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
• 1905 - Barnett Newman
• 1912 - Martha Griffiths
• 1935 - Victor J Stenger
• 1929 - Lee Terry

Deaths

• 1963 - Robert Frost
• 2012 - Camilla Williams
• 1944 - William Allen White
• 1899 - Alfred Sisley
• 1964 - Alan Ladd