42 Quotes by Gustave Courbet

I too am a government.

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.

The state is not competent in artistic matters... When the state leaves us free, it will have carried out its duty.

When I am dead, let it be said of me: he belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, and least of all, to any regime except the regime of liberty.

To be able to translate the customs, ideas and appearance of my times as I see them - in a word, to create a living art - this has been my aim.

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.

It is fatal for art if it is forced into official respectability and condemned to sterile mediocrity.

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

The principle of realism means denial of the ideal.