It is not enough for a painter to be a clever craftsman; he must love to ‘caress’ his canvas, too.
There are two indices of genuine art: it is inimitable and it is ineffable.
I’ve known painters who never did any good work because instead of painting their models they seduced them.
I’ve spent my life making blunders.
An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.
I’ve never let one day go by without painting, or at least without drawing.
I arrange my subject as I want it, then I go ahead and paint it, like a child.
About 1883 something like a break occurred in my work. I had reached the end of ‘impressionism,’ and I had come to realize that I did not know how to paint or draw.
Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art.
One can thus state, without fear of being wrong, that every truly artistic production has been conceived and executed according to the principle of irregularity.
Berthe Morisot was a painter full of eighteenth-century delicacy and grace; in a word, the last elegant and ‘feminine’ artists since Fragonard.
What I like so much about Corot is that he can say everything with a bit of tree; and it was Corot himself that I found in the museum of Naples – in the simplicity of the work of Pompeii and the Egyptians. These priestesses in their silver-grey tunics are just like Corot’s nymphs.
How is it that in the so-called barbarian ages art was understood, whereas in our age of progress exactly the opposite is true?
A fat lot of good it would do if I told you that Titian’s courtesans make you want to caress them. Some day you’ll see the Titians for yourself, and if they have no effect on you, then you don’t understand the first thing about painting. And I wouldn’t be able to help you.
Do not think that it is possible to repeat another period.
You’ve got to be a fool to want to stop the march of time.
The most important element in a picture cannot be defined.
To be an artist you must learn the laws of nature.
The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion.
The modern architect is, generally speaking, art’s greatest enemy.