There Can Be No Doubt

By Close Inspection... You Will Discover The Manner Of Handling The Artifices Of Contrast, Glazing, And Other Expedients, By Which Good Colorists Have Raised The Value Of Their Tints, And By Which Nature Has Been So Happily Imitated.

Could We Teach Taste Or Genius By Rules, They Would Be No Longer Taste And Genius.

Those Who, Either From Their Own Engagements And Hurry Of Business, Or From Indolence, Or From Conceit And Vanity, Have Neglected Looking Out Of Themselves, As Far As My Experience And Observation Reach, Have From That Time Not Only Ceased To Advance, And Improve In Their Performances, But Have Gone Backward. They May Be Compared To Men Who Have Lived Upon Their Principal, Till They Are Reduced To Beggary, And Left Without Resources.

I Have Heard Painters Acknowledge, Though In That Acknowledgment No Degradation Of Themselves Was Intended, That They Could Do Better Without Nature Than With Her; Or As They Express Themselves, 'that It Only Put Them Out.

There Is No Expedient To Which A Man Will Not Resort To Avoid The Real Labor Of Thinking.