Anna Brownell Jameson Quotes about Art

Nature is boundless in her powers, exhausting in her variety: the powers of Art and its capabilities of variety in production are bounded on every side. Nature herself, the infinite, has circumscribed the bounds of

Nature is boundless in her powers, exhausting in her variety: the powers of Art and its capabilities of variety in production are bounded on every side. Nature herself, the infinite, has circumscribed the bounds of finite Art. The one is the divinity; the other the priestess.

Anna Brownell Jameson

Art, Nature, Divinity

Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords-philosophy, art, poetry, love, scandal, and the weather.

Anna Brownell Jameson

Love, Art, Philosophy

Anna Brownell Jameson (1858). “Sketches of art, literature, and character [orig. publ. as Visits and sketches at home and abroad].”, p.50

The streams which would otherwise diverge to fertilize a thousand meadows, must be directed into one deep narrow channel before they can turn a mill.

Anna Brownell Jameson

Art, Focus, One Deep

He that seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius: as he must needs paint for other minds, and not for his own.

Anna Brownell Jameson

Art, Doors, Mind

Anna Brownell Jameson (1846). “Memoirs and essays, illustrative of art, literature and social morals”, p.192

Thoughts and emotions which never perhaps were in the mind of the artist, never were anticipated, never were intended by him - may be strongly suggested by his work. This is an important part of the morals of art, which we must never lose sight of. Art is not only for pleasure and profit, but for good and for evil.

Anna Brownell Jameson

Art, Sight, Evil

Anna Brownell Jameson (1877). “A commonplace book of thoughts, memories and fancies, original and selected”, p.282

A good taste in art feels the presence or the absence of merit; a just taste discriminates the degree--the poco piu and the poco meno. A good taste rejects faults; a just taste selects excellences. A good taste is often unconscious; a just taste is always conscious. A good taste may be lowered or spoilt; a just taste can only go on refining more and more.

Anna Brownell Jameson

Art, Excellence, Degrees

In the art of design, color is to form what verse is to prose,--a more harmonious and luminous vehicle of the thought.

Anna Brownell Jameson

Art, Color, Design

How often we have had cause to regret that the histrionic art, of all the fine arts the most intense in its immediate effect, should be, of all others, the most transient in its result! - and the only memorials it can leave behind, at best, so imperfect and so unsatisfactory!

Anna Brownell Jameson

Art, Regret, Memorial

Anna Brownell Jameson (1846). “Memoirs and essays, illustrative of art, literature and social morals”, p.69