124 Quotes by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

It is impossible to repeat in one period what was done in another.The pointof view isnotthesame, anymorethan are the tools, the ideals, the needs, or the painters' techniques.

I have a horror of the word 'flesh', which has become so shopworn.Why not 'meat'whilethey're about it? What I like is skin, a young girl's skin that is pink and shows that she has a good circulation.

How is it that in the so-called barbarian ages art was understood, whereas in our age of progress exactly the opposite is true?

People will keep on taking them for theorists, when all they wanted was to paint in gay, bright colours, like the old masters.

to express himself well, the artist should be hidden... The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he's done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.

What seems most significant to me about our movement is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story.

They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph.

With a limited palette, the older painters could do just as well as today what they did was sounder.

"The work of art must seize upon you...carry you away."