Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Art Quotations

Art is the child of Nature; yes, Her darling child, in whom we trace The features of the mother's face, Her aspect and her attitude, All her majestic loveliness Chastened and softened and subdued Into a more attractive grace, And with a human sense imbued. He is the greatest artist, then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows Nature.

The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.

For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.

Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest of all the arts.

Take this sorrow to thy heart and make it part of thee, and it shall nourish thee till thou art strong again.

Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto His glory.

For the structure that we raise, Time is with materials filled; Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build.

Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught In schools, some graduate of the field or street, Who shall become a master of art, An admiral sailing the high seas of thought Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet For lands not yet laid down in any chart.

Many have genius, but, wanting art, are forever dumb. The two must go together to form the great poet, painter, or sculptor.

Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting.

In the elder days of art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part, For the Gods are everywhere

Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe.

From dust thou art to dust returneth, was not spoken of the soul.

The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye-not creation, but insight.

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face.

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

Art is the child of Nature.

Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man.

Resolve and thou art free.

O thou sculptor, painter, poet! Take this lesson to thy heart: That is best which lieth nearest; Shape from that thy work of art.