Portfolio of an Artist

Front Cover
H. Perkins, 1839 - American literature - 263 pages
Rembrandt Peale painted over 600 works of art throughout his lifetime. He painted many prominent individuals in American history, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun. This book was written by Peale and contains his personal memoirs along with his artistic philosophy.

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 233 - God loves from whole to parts ; but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds. Another still, and still another spreads : Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace ; His country next ; and next all human race ; Wide and. more wide, th...
Page 114 - The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Page 122 - To build, to plant, whatever you intend, To rear the column, or the arch to bend, To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot; In all, let Nature never be forgot.
Page 34 - First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard, which is still the same: Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchang'd, and universal light, Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart, At once the source, and end, and test of Art. Art from that fund each just supply provides, Works without show, and without pomp presides: In some fair body thus th...
Page 186 - Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, - where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state. This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Page 70 - Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, He has not left a wiser or better behind : His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand : His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; Still born to improve us in every part, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart...
Page 78 - SHE walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Page 133 - TO him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
Page 47 - AT summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye, Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky ? Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear More sweet than all the landscape smiling near ?'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Page 208 - To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances, which every day for perhaps forty years had rendered familiar; With sun and moon and stars throughout the year, And man and woman; 6 this is the character and privilege of genius, and one of the marks which distinguish genius from talents.

Bibliographic information