List of Gustave Courbet Quotes

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.

Titles Have Never Given A Just Idea Of Things; Were It Otherwise, The Work Would Be Superfluous.

France Is The Only Nation In Which Astoundingly Small Numbers Of Civilized Patrons Reside.

I Hope To Live All My Life For My Art, Without Abandoning My Principles One Iota.

Painting Is An Essentially Concrete Art And Can Only Consist Of The Representation Of Real And Existing Things.

The Expression Of Beauty Is In Direct Ratio To The Power Of Conception The Artist Has Acquired.

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.

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.

On The Left Is The Realist Tradition Of The 19th Century, With Its Impulse To Social Description, Radical Criticism And Meditation On Things As They Are... Culminating In Courbet At His Mightiest (the Studio, The Funeral At Ornans And A Portrait Of A Trout That Has More Death In It Than Rubens Could Get In A Whole Crucifixion).

The State Is Not Competent In Artistic Matters... When The State Leaves Us Free, It Will Have Carried Out Its Duty.

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.