42 Quotes by Gustave Courbet

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

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 régime except the régime of liberty.

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

I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients.

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.

Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.

When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves.

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

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.