I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.
ATTRIBUTION:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. “Art,” Essays, First Series (1841, repr. 1847).
