Choose only one master — Nature. — Rembrandt

"Alongside Leonardo and Michelangelo, Rembrandt is one of the three most famous artists ever, with whom the public is on a first-name basis; and the name Rembrandt has lent the cachet of greatness and the grace of familiarity to sell everything from kitchen countertops to whitening toothpaste to fancy hotels in Bangkok and Knightsbridge. No work of Rembrandts has attained the iconic status of the David or the Mona Lisa; yet Rembrandt seems to rank with the greatest of the great."

"I gave up painting by 16. I secretly thought I would have been Rembrandt by then. I dont believe in genius. I believe in freedom. I think anyone can do it. Anyone can be like Rembrandt.. Picasso, Michelangelo, possibly, might be verging on genius, but I dont think a painter like Rembrandt is a genius. Its about freedom and guts. Its about looking. It can be learned. Thats the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings."

"Its an exhilarating feeling, holding that painting, especially when you have studied it for so long and are now the sole proprietor of said piece. To an art lover, possessing a Rembrandt can be likened to winning the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the Stanley Cup all at once. You feel a real sense of almost being a part of the artists mind."

"Theres a Rembrandt trapped in this body. Its your job to find it."

"Well, any draftsman knows about speed. I mean, Rembrandt drawings, you can see speed in them. I am interested in speed. I think most painters paint faster than they tell you."

"[Rembrandt] The most famous brand name in western art. In America alone it graces toothpaste, bracelet charms, restaurant and bars, counter-tops and of course the town of Rembrandt, Iowa just halfway around the world from the Rembrandt Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. Funny thing is Rembrandt might have been quite pleased with such widespread notoriety. (...) Rembrandt was a realist craftsman who showed off his craft to sell his work. His paintings brim with self-confidence as this in bold oil sketch of the entombment of Christ painted with an almost modern bravado. His drawings were dashed off with a Zen-like assurance. His etchings complete and elaborate works of art in themselves which sold in great quantity to two Dutch middle class."

"Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into everything which is the object of his contemplation."

"The Good consists in the congruity of a thing with the laws of the reason and the nature of the will, and in its fitness to determine the latter to actualize the former: and it is always discursive. The Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination: and it is always intuitive."

"I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought."

"Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flower Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!"

"All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair — The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing — And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."

"Taste is the intermediate faculty which connects the active with the passive powers of our nature, the intellect with the senses; and its appointed function is to elevate the images of the latter, while it realizes the ideas of the former."