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Quote by James Elkins

“The range in brightness from the purple glow [of the sunset] to the dark sky above is too great for most films, and naturally it is beyond the range of printed pictures.”

Quote by James Elkins

Book:How to Use Your Eyes

Work

How to Use Your Eyes

This book explores techniques and exercises for improving one's ability to see and interpret the world around them, focusing on the science and practice of visual perception. more

Author

James Elkins is a renowned art critic born in 1955. His work spans a wide range of fields from modern art to contemporary art, known for his profound analysis and unique insights. more

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“Perhaps art criticism cannot be reformed in a logical sense because it was never well-formed in the first place. Art criticism has long been a mongrel among academic pursuits, borrowing whatever it needed from other fields.”

Firsts Wells Long Art Fields Needed Criticism Pursuit Logical Academic Borrowing

Author:James Elkins

“I'd like to understand why it seems normal to look at astonishing achievements made by unapproachably ambitious, luminously pious, strangely obsessed artists, and toss them off with a few wry comments.”

Looks Made Seems Artist Normal Achievement Critics Obsessed Comment Ambitious Astonishing Pious Toss Wry

Book:Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings

Source: Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings

“A few moments before the sun sets, the dark Earth shadow begins to rise in the east... It is nothing less than the shadow of the entire Earth, cast upward onto the atmosphere itself... I saw it over the great plains, and I felt as if I could sense the Earth pivoting silently under my feet.”

Ifs Moments Earth Felt Dark Sun Saws Feet Shadow Casts East Atmosphere If I Could Sun Set

Author:James Elkins

“To put it as simply as possible - and this is a simple answer, not a total answer - I know when a painting's finished when I understand why I wanted to do it in the first place.”

Knows Firsts Wanted Simple Answers Painting Finished Finishing

Author:James Elkins

“If paintings are so important - worth so much, reproduced, cherished, and visited so often - then isn't it troubling that we can hardly make emotional contact with the artists? Few centuries, it seems, are as determinedly tearless as ours.”

Ifs Important Seems Artist Century Emotional Painting Importance Contact

Author:James Elkins

“The material memories are not usually part of what is said about a picture, and that is a fault in interpretation because every painting captures a certain resistance of paint, a prodding gesture of the brush, a speed and insistence in the face of mindless matter.”

Said Matter Faces Certain Memories Painting Materials Faults Paint Speed Resistance Interpretation Capture Gestures Brushes Mindless Insistence

Book:What Painting Is

Source: What Painting Is

“Most people would guess that the sun is fifty or a hundred times brighter than the moon, but it's a half million times brighter - evidence of the amazing capacity of our eyes to adjust to light and dark.”

People Light Eye Dark Half Millions Sun Moon Hundred Evidence Capacity Fifty Brighter Light And Dark

Book:How to Use Your Eyes

Source: How to Use Your Eyes

“The purple light or glow, which appears roughly fifteen or twenty minutes after sunset... looks like an isolated bright spot fairly high in the sky over the place the sun has set, and then it quickly expands and sinks until it blends with the colors underneath.”

Looks Light Sun Sky Minutes Color Twenties Spots Sunset Isolated Fifteen Purple

Author:James Elkins

“Painters love paint itself: so much that they spend years trying to get paint to behave the way they want it to.”

Way Want Trying Years Materials Paint Painter Behave

Book:What Painting Is

Source: What Painting Is

“Water and stones. Those are the unpromising ingredients of two very different endeavors... painting, because artists' pigments are made from fluids... mixed together with powdered stones to give color... and the other is alchemy, the stone the ultimate goal.”

Giving Made Two Different Together Artist Goal Water Color Painting Materials Stones Ultimate Ingredients Endeavor Fluid Alchemy Ultimate Goal Pigment

Author:James Elkins