The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.
For you, a comet, under a blue sky, leaves trail of color, For you, a star, dreams of being able to kiss you, dream to hear your voice For you, full moon, keep vigil for you, my girl, keep vigil for you, my love.
I am still learning.
I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint.
Beauty depends on purpose. It is in the elements best suited to their purpose or aim that beauty shines forth most strongly.
Painters are not in any way unsociable through pride, but either because they find few pursuits equal to painting, or in order not to corrupt themselves with the useless conversation of idle people, and debase the intellect from the lofty imaginations in which they are always absorbed.
The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.
And who is so barbarous as not to understand that the foot of a man is nobler than his shoe, and his skin nobler than that of the sheep with which he is clothed.
Lord free me of myself, so I can please you!
Can’t you see the angel imprisoned in the block of stone trying to get out? I am trying to free him.
Perchance that I might learn what pity is, That I might laugh at erring men no more.
If it be true that any beautiful thing raises the pure and just desire of man from earth to God, the eternal fount of all, such I believe my love.
If the wine is not good, then throw it out!
What one has most to work and struggle for in painting is to do the work with a great amount of labour and sweat in such a way that it may afterward appear, however much it was laboured upon, to have been done almost quickly and almost without any labour, and very easily, although it was not.
True art is made noble and religious by the mind producing it.
I sometimes set myself thinking and imagining that I find amongst men but one single art or science, and that is drawing or painting, all others being members proceeding therefrom.
I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop.
Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop.
From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born.
The greatest risk to man is not that he aims to high and misses, but that he aims to low and hits.
Above all, artists must not be only in art galleries or museums – they must be present in all possible activities. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in whatever endeavor people take on, at every level.