Gombrich

"People who insist the sky must be blue and the grass green, are not very different from these of children" 

I've never read something thats spoke so much sense to me as Gombrich has in "The story of art". There was no other way to describe such sense than to quote the necessary. To anyone who has doubted themselves as an artist, or most specifically to myself, a painter; continue reading.

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"But here newcomers to art are often brough up against another difficulty. They want to admire the artists skill in representing the things they see. What they like best are paintings which look real. I do not deny for a moment that this is an important consideration. The patience and skill which go into the faithful rendering of the visible world are indeed to be admired. Great artists of the past have devoted much labour to works in which every tine detail is carefully recorded..." (page 23) "there are two things therefore which we should always ask ourselves if we find fault in the accuracy of a picture. One if whether the artist may not have had his reasons for changing the appearance of what he/she saw...." (page 25) "we are all inclines to be quick with the verdict that 'things do not look like that'. We have a curious habit of thinking that nature must always look like the pictures we are accusomed to."(page 25) ... "We are all inclined to accept conventional forms or colours as the only correct ones. Children sometimes think that stars must be star shaped, though naturally they are not. The people who insist the sky must be blue, and the grass green, are not very different from these of children." (page 26)

"Now painters sometimes feel as if they were on such a voyage of discovery. They want to see the world a fresh, and to discard all the accepted notions and prejudgices about flesh being pink and apples yellow or red. It is not easy to get rid of these preconceived ideas, but the artists who succeeds best in doing so often produce the most exicitng works." (page 26)