Quote 18 of 40

From Emerson's Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thus in our fine arts, not imitation but creation is the aim.  In
landscapes the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer creation
than we know. ... he will come to value the expression of nature and
not nature itself, and so exalt in his copy the features that please
him.  He will give the gloom of gloom and the sunshine of sunshine.
In a portrait he must inscribe the character and not the features, and
must esteem the man who sits to him as himself only an imperfect
picture or likeness of the aspiring original within.
		-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Art", p. 184

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