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204 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1943
Slimness in figure drawing has become almost a cult. What the artists of the Middle Ages considered voluptuous appeal would be plain fat today. Nothing will kill a sale so quickly as fatness or shortness. [...] If my figures seem absurdly tall, remember that I am giving you the conception accepted as a standard.
The term "talent" needs clarifying. To any[one] who has slaved to acquire skill in [their] art, it is most irritating to have [their] ability referred to as a "gift." Perhaps there is one genius in a hundred years or more who can achieve perfection by "divine inspiration." I have never met such a [person], and I do not know any successful artist who did not get there by the sweat of [their] brow. Again, I do not know of a single successful artist who does not continue to work hard.
[...] Talent, in its underclothes, is a capacity for a certain kind of learning. Talent is an urge, an insatiable desire to excel, coupled with idefatigable powers of concentration and production. Talent and ability are like sunlight and a truck garden. The sun must be there to begin with, but, added to it, there must be plowing, planting, weeding, howing, destroying of parasites--all have to be done before your garden will yield produce.