Artists aim not to reproduce the image that is Nature. Artists aim to take elements from Nature and create an image that is Art. That’s why landscape paintings, for instance, are more attractive than Nature itself:
Nature contains the elements, in color and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful—as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he bring forth from chaos glorious harmony.
(Whistler said this in the public lecture he gave in England at Prince’s Hall, Piccadilly, on February 20,1885. The Saunterer quotes it from page 293 of Margaret C. Conrads’ Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American paintings, 2007.)
For a brief biography of James McNeil Whistler, click here. For images of or relating James McNeil Whistler, click here.
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