Eakins Quotes & Sayings

Death may be due to a wide variety of diseases and disorders, but in every case the underlying physiological cause is a breakdown in the body's oxygen cycle. — Dr. Milton Helpern

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

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

Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton ... I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by ... If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations ... What do you think you see, Linus?"
"Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean ... That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor ... And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen ... I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side ... "
"Uh huh ... That's very good ... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?"
"Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind! — Charles M. Schulz

Religion can only dream to do what science and art does every day. — Reggie Watts

When a man paints a naked woman he gives her less than poor Nature did. I can conceive of few circumstances wherein I would have to paint a woman naked, but if I did I would not mutilate her for double the money. She is the most beautiful thing there is except a naked man, but I never saw a study of one exhibited. — Thomas Eakins

Strain your brain more than your eye. — Thomas Eakins

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

How beautiful an old woman's skin is! All those wrinkles! — Thomas Eakins

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

In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting. — Thomas Eakins

The river, tonally, does not recede, presenting the same lifeless grey near and far, a depthless plane upon which Schmitt's dragging oars inscribe parallel lines and Eakins' oars, rising and falling, leave methodically spaced patches of disturbed water. The canvas is haunting - en evocation of the democracy's idyllic, isolating spaciousness, present even in the midst of a great Eastern city. — John Updike

Eakins rejected gentlemen athletics as his theme. Instead, he took a subject that had been the stuff of illustrated weeklies and the penny press and turned it into fine art. Eakins celebrates not fire from heaven but honest sweat, not genius but hard work. — Barry S. Strauss

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

It is better to burn out then fade away — Neil Young

Enthusiasm for one's goal lessens the disagreeableness of working toward it. — Thomas Eakins

The big artist keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools. — Thomas Eakins

My honors are misunderstanding, pesecution and neglect, enhanced because unsought. — Thomas Eakins

The greatest poet who ever wrote about rowing is Virgil, the greatest historian is Thucydides, but the greatest imagination ever to turn its attention to the sport is that of painter, Thomas Eakins. — Barry S. Strauss

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

I have hundreds of art books and the biographies of artists I love, such as Thomas Eakins and Edgar Degas. — Jamie Wyeth

Summoning up the images in my imagination was easy. Getting them out of my head and onto the canvas was harder. The hardest thing. Sometimes, I thought, the impossible thing. Often, I thought, the only worthwhile thing. — Tim Pratt

No man, and least of all myself, could ever disentangle the feelings that animated him. — Thomas Eakins

We live on this speck called Earth - think about what you might do, today or tomorrow - and make the most of it. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson