Fuseli Quotes & Sayings

In Allston, as generous as he was with his praise and encouragement, Sophia had come face-to-face with the male art establishment and its aesthetic. She had encountered it before when she was hustled out of Thomas Doughty's studio while a men's painting class was in session. More recently, at a gathering in the Reverend Channing's parlor, she had been stunned when the minister had quoted the influential British artist Henry Fuseli's sneering observation that there was "no fist" in women's painting - and then demanded Sophia's response. Flustered, Sophia had "sunk away into my shell," unable to speak, she confided in her journal. She had enough trouble summoning the confidence to paint each day, let alone defend women artists as a class. Channing's question struck to the heart of Sophia's ambivalence about taking the initiative to create original works of art. Virtually — Megan Marshall

The price of excellence is labor, and time that of immortality. — Henry Fuseli

Blake is damned good to steal from. — Henry Fuseli

I have been told lately that Fuseli was travelling by coach and a gentleman opposite him said: "I understand, Mr. Fuseli, that you ... I have been told lately that Fuseli was travelling by coach and a gentleman opposite him said: "I understand, Mr. Fuseli, that you are a painter; it may interest you to know that I have a daughter who paints on velvet."
Fuseli rose instantly and said in a strong foreign accent, "Let me get out. — Samuel Butler

Art, like love, excludes all competition and absorbs the man. — Henry Fuseli

Expression alone can invest beauty with supreme and lasting command over the eye. — Henry Fuseli

Indiscriminate pursuit of perfection infallibly leads to mediocrity. — Henry Fuseli

Emulation embalms the dead; envy, the vampire, blasts the living. — Henry Fuseli

Raffael's drapery is the assistant of character, in Michelangelo it envelopes grandeur; it is in Reubens the ponderous robe of pomp. — Henry Fuseli

Tintoretto attempted to fill the line of Michelangelo with color, without tracing its principle. — Henry Fuseli

Ancient art was the tyrant of Egypt, the mistress of Greece and the servant of Rome. — Henry Fuseli

Heaven and earth, advantages and obstacles, conspire to educate genius. — Henry Fuseli

The superiority of the Greeks seems not so much the result of climate and society, as of the simplicity of their end and the uniformity of their means. — Henry Fuseli

All actions and attitudes of children are graceful because they are the luxuriant and immediate offspring of the moment - divested of affectation and free from all pretense. — Henry Fuseli

Art among a religious race produces reliques [sic]; among a military one, trophies; among a commercial one, articles of trade. — Henry Fuseli

When we idealize the real, we sacrifice to artistic fancy. — Henry Fuseli

Our ideas are the offspring of our senses; we are not more able to create the form of a being we have not seen, without retrospect to one we know, than we are able to create a new sense. He whose fancy has conceived an idea of the most beautiful form must have composed it from actual existence. — Henry Fuseli

Nature is a collective idea, and, though its essence exist in each individual of the species, can never in its perfection inhabit a single object. — Henry Fuseli

Selection is the invention of the landscape painter. — Henry Fuseli

Life is rapid, art is slow, occasion coy, practice fallacious, and judgment partial. — Henry Fuseli