Creativity Quote by William Merritt Chase

Chase is laying down a deceptively strict rule that doubles as a manifesto: paint what the eye actually receives, not what the mind thinks it knows. On the surface, it reads like disciplined craft advice - match the colors “as nearly as you can,” study “light and shade” - but the subtext is an argument against inherited formulas. He is warning students off the lazy shorthand of local color (grass is green, sky is blue) and pushing them toward perception, where “nature’s own hues and tints” are constantly being remixed by atmosphere, time of day, and reflected light.

The phrasing matters. “Must” lands like studio law, yet the goal isn’t photorealism so much as honesty: the painter’s job is to register relationships. A white dress is rarely white; it’s lavender in shadow, lemon at the edge of sun, gray where the sky bounces back. Chase is training painters to see color as a consequence of light, not an intrinsic property of objects. That’s a modern idea in practice, even when it’s delivered in old-school imperative.

Contextually, Chase sits at a crossroads: an American painter steeped in European training, teaching in a moment when Impressionism had made light the main character. His line reads like pedagogy, but it’s also a cultural stance. In a booming, image-hungry America, he’s insisting that good art begins with slowing down - letting the world, not convention, dictate the palette.