I Am Not One Who Was Born

I Have Never Seen Either Angels Or Goddesses, So I Am Not Interested In Painting Them.

On The Left Is The Realist Tradition Of The 19th Century, With Its Impulse To Social Description, Radical Criticism And Meditation On Things As They Are... Culminating In Courbet At His Mightiest (the Studio, The Funeral At Ornans And A Portrait Of A Trout That Has More Death In It Than Rubens Could Get In A Whole Crucifixion).

I Hope Always To Earn My Living By My Art Without Having Ever Deviated By Even A Hair's Breadth From My Principles... To Please Anyone Or To Sell More Easily.

I Am Fifty Years Old And I Have Always Lived In Freedom; Let Me End My Life Free; When I Am Dead Let This Be Said Of Me: 'he Belonged To No School, To No Church, To No Institution, To No Academy, Least Of All To Any Regime Except The Regime Of Liberty.'

The Beautiful Is In Nature, And It Is Encountered Under The Most Diverse Forms Of Reality. Once It Is Found It Belongs To Art, Or Rather To The Artist Who Discovers It.