Remarks by Sadakichi Hartmann | V2Melody Quotations

“Came to the States on a hot June day with a capital of three dollars.”

Dry record of arrival as a penniless youth · Autobiography

“Geometrical shapes form the intelligent and austere understructure of all arts, in a palace as well as a poem.”

Seeing abstract form as the skeleton of every art · Camera Work essay

“It is this vagueness of thought endeavoring to sound the foundation of all things, this want of definition, hinting at ideas that cannot be precisely expressed, that give to art its ultimate and finest significance.”

Valuing suggestion over exact statement · Camera Work essay

“All great art expressions are extractions, typifications, symbolizations of general laws and apparitions.”

Art as concentrated symbol rather than copy · Camera Work essay

“Haiku ought to create a unison of the external beauties of nature and the subtleties of the human soul.”

Defining short Japanese verse as nature joined to soul · Writings on Japanese poetry

“A Japanese poet simply depicts a crow sitting on a withered branch, and leaves it to the reader to complete the poetic thought.”

Describing suggestion as the Japanese lyric method · Essay on Japanese poetry

“It seemed to me a spiritually deepened image of contemporary Americans: an ideal laborer, as the Americans are really a nation of laborers.”

Reading a national type in one face · Account of first visit to Whitman

“There was nothing overwhelming to me in Whitman's face, but I liked it at once for its healthy manliness.”

First impression of Whitman as an ideal labourer · Conversations with Walt Whitman / early memoir of first visit

“For no artist is so self-sufficient that he will shape his course unaffected by, and apart from, what has been done before.”

Denying absolute originality as a myth · Essay, On Plagiarism and Imitation, 1900

“To transform history into art is surely not a sin.”

Defending artistic use of inherited material · Essay, On Plagiarism and Imitation, 1900

“Heine is right, borrow as much as you like. But be certain that you master the accumulations of others to such an extent that they have become your own.”

Borrowing only after making the borrowed thing one's own · Essay, On Plagiarism and Imitation, 1900

“I have always endorsed Heine's defense of plagiarism, that it is permissible to steal entire columns and porticoes from a temple, providing the new edifice one erects with their aid is great enough.”

Allowing bold borrowing if the new work justifies it · Essay, On Plagiarism and Imitation, 1900

“These commercial travellers of art will never know the painter's pure delight, the contemplation of life, the aspiration to perfection, the lifting of beauty out of the dead pigment.”

Contrasting commerce with contemplative craft · The Whistler Book

“It was Whistler who proved that art was synonymous with hard work.”

Praising patient labour over facile display · The Whistler Book

“A new art form is always the expression of a new spirit. In painting the new spirit is rebellious.”

Linking formal invention to revolt of spirit · The Whistler Book

“To fashion something beautiful simply because one feels like doing it. To purify one's mind by projecting into life what is accumulated there by some curious grace of nature.”

Art as inner necessity rather than market duty · The Whistler Book

“Why could not a single man, even with the whole world against him, live up to some big ideal! To be an artist simply for one's own gratification.”

Praising solitary fidelity to an artistic ideal · The Whistler Book

“I wrote the first generally accepted History of American Art—it is not likely that an alien enemy would devote ten years of his life to such a task.”

Claiming patriotic labour through scholarship · Wartime self-defence statement

“I have been a champion of American Art all my life.”

Stating a lifelong public cause · Letter, 1906

“Have we no flowers in America? Are not our women Beautiful?”

Urging native subjects instead of imported scenery · Essay, A National American Art

“The everlasting complaint is: There is no atmosphere in America. Pshaw!”

Dismissing the charge that America lacks artistic air · Essay, A National American Art

“The true artist has ever preferred to worship his lofty and often narrow ideals in poverty and obscurity, rather than to waste his genius on the vain world.”

Ideal of obscure fidelity over worldly success · Critical essays

“Biographical data do not interest me. What is the difference where a man is born, how old he is, where he studied, and where he was medaled? His art must speak—that is all I care for.”

Judging work over pedigree · Art criticism

“Studio visits are valuable because they are the only way to get at a man's individuality.”

Preferring the person behind the picture · Art criticism essays

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