When you draw, form is the important thing. But in painting the first thing is to look for the general impression of color….. Always paint a direct sketch from nature every day”.
Jean-Léon Gérôme, via James Gurney’s book : ‘Color and light’.
To draw does not simply mean to reproduce contours; the drawing does not simply consist in the idea; the drawing is even the expression, the interior form, the plan, the model. Look what remains after that! The drawing is three-fourths and a half of what constitutes painting. If I had to put a sign over the door of my atelier, I would write: School of Drawing…and I’m certain that I would create painters.
(‘Notes et pensées’ in « Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine » by H. Delaborde, p.123, H. Plon, 1870)
