42 Quotes by Gustave Courbet

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.

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

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

I deny that art can be taught, or, in other words, maintain that art is completely individual, and that the talent of each artist is but the result of his own inspiration and his own study of past tradition.

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.

Art is a wholly physical language whose words are all the visible objects.

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

Without trying to clear up the degree of correctness of a qualification which no one, one must hope, will be asked to understand exactly, I will limit myself to a few words of explanation to cut short any misunderstandings.

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