Quote

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

— James Whistler

Sentiment: POSITIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

There is no more reason why the features belonging to a picture should be distorted for the purpose of such imaginative suggestion than that the poet's metaphors should spoil his words for the ordinary uses of man.

— William H. Hunt

As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

— Edmond de Goncourt

People believe that photographs are true and therefore cannot be art.

— Mason Cooley

I would sooner play in a good British picture than in the majority of American pictures I have seen.

— Glynis Johns

As writers, we do our best to conjure a world so vivid that the reader can practically walk through it - but we're still only using words and relying on readers to do a lot of work of imagining. Providing pictures as well as words offers a whole new dimension to the experience of consuming a story.

— Sharon Shinn

You can give some kind of spark of life to a comic that a photograph doesn't really have. A photograph, even if it's connecting with you, it seems very dead on the page sometimes.

— Daniel Clowes

I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn't present the picture they would like.

— George MacDonald Fraser

✗Opposing Perspectives

Regardless of whether you speak the language or are familiar with a culture, the picture should hold up.

— Herb Ritts

A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.

— Ansel Adams

It's too bad for us 'literary' enthusiasts, but it's the truth nevertheless - pictures tell any story more effectively than words.

— William Moulton Marston