William Morris Hunt's "Talks on Art:" Motivation

"Val d'Aosta (A Stream over Rocks)" by John Singer Sargent

"Artists are supposed to pass their lives in earnest endeavor to express through the medium of paint or pencil, thoughts, feelings, or impressions which they cannot help expressing, and which cannot possibly be expressed by any other means. They make use of material means in order to arrive at this end. They tell their story - the story of a day, an impression of a character, a recollection of a moment, or whatever, more or less clearly or well, as they are more or less capable of doing. They expose their work to the public, not for the sake of praise, but with a feeling and a hope that some human being may see in it the feeling that has passed through their own mind in their poor and necessarily crippled statement. The endeavor is honest and earnest, if almost always with a result weakened by over conscientiousness or endeavor to be understood."

"If we only would dare to say what we believe - what we like. We pick a little flower in the field, and look at it by ourselves, certain that no one sees us. At last somebody comes along: 'Hulloa! Then you like a potato blossom? So do I! But I never dared to say so.'"

"The painter has to go directly to nature, or he is a mere copyist. He cannot paint his picture like somebody else. He must tell his own story... Please look out of the window. You'll get something different from what you get out of books, for it never has been seen before."

"Five years ago scarcely a Boston individual would look at a Corot. Twenty years ago nobody in Europe would buy him. He was 'so peculiar!' So was Christopher Columbus. The pioneer is always peculiar!"

"We don't work enough for the sake of learning but too much for the sake of having it known that we work. The desire to excel is natural and commendable, but we must cut it down, and sacrifice ourselves in order to learn."

"The artist is an interpreter of Nature. People learn to love nature through pictures. To the artist nothing is in vain; nothing beneath his notice. If he is great enough he will exalt every subject which he treats. Who sees or hears the word 'albatross' and does not think of the 'Ancient Mariner?'"

(Excerpts from "Talks on Art" by W.M. Hunt.)