John French Sloan
John French Sloan
John French Sloanwas a twentieth-century painter and etcher and one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known for his urban genre scenes and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often observed through his Chelsea studio window. Sloan has been called "the premier artist of the Ashcan School who painted the inexhaustible energy and life of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth2 August 1871
CountryUnited States of America
Most art students are generous till it comes to squeezing their colour on the palette... Many pictures haven't become works of art simply because the artist tried to save a nickel's worth of colour.
Many great works of art have only form, the sculpture of the thing. Color as used to signify realization by men like Titian and Rembrandt, gives greater life and tactile experience to the work.
The important thing is to keep on drawing when you start to paint. Never graduate from drawing.
Art is the result of a creative impulse derived out of a consciousness of life.
Drawing is the cornerstone of the graphic, plastic arts. Drawing is the coordination of line, tone, and color symbols into formations that express the artist's thought.
In the hands of a master, light and shade is one of the great qualities of art.
The emphasis on original, individual work in the past years has done a great deal to produce a crop of eccentric fakes and has carried art away from the stream of tradition. Tradition is our heritage of knowledge and experience. We can't get along without it.
Study the great brush drawings of the Chinese and Japanese... When we try to imitate their conventions for perspective, form and texture we lose the content, because those artists were part of an ancient tradition. Our tradition changes rapidly, our schools of thought come to fruition quickly and decay again. We see differently.
The subject may be of first importance to the artist when he starts a picture, but it should be of least importance in the finished product. The subject is of no aesthetic significance.
The artist does not see both eyes alike. There is always 'the eye' and the other eye... It adds life and plasticity to the drawing if the eye in the light is darker than the one in the shadow. It gives the head vividness.
The artist seeks to record his awareness of order in life.
...in the habit of watching every bit of human life I can see about my windows, but I do it so that I am not observed at it.
The purpose of subject matter is to veil technique. The great artist uses the cloak of resemblance to hide the means.
Artists are the only people in the world who really live. The others have to hope for heaven.