I have studied the art of the masters and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I have no more wanted to imitate the former than to copy the latter nor have I thought of achieving the idle aim of art for art's sake.

When I am no longer controversial, I will no longer be important

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it.

The principle of realism means denial of the ideal.

France is the only nation in which astoundingly small numbers of civilized patrons reside.

Titles have never given a just idea of things were it otherwise, the work would be superfluous.

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.

I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota, without . . . having painted as much as you can cover with your hand, to please somebody or in order to sell the picture more easily.

The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

I have never seen either angels or goddesses, so I am not interested in painting them.

I have never seen an angel. Show me an angel, and I'll paint one.

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.'

Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things. It is a completely physical language, the words of which consist of all visible objects. An object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.

Art or talent, for an artist, is merely a means of applying his personal faculties to the ideas and the things of the period in which he lives.