Everything in nature is formed upon the sphere, the cone and the cylinder. One must learn to paint these simple figures and then one can do all that he may wish.
We live in a rainbow of chaos.
Pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and colour are not distinct, everything in nature is coloured.
There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.
With an apple I will astonish Paris.
I'll always be grateful to the public of intelligent amateurs.
It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.
The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.
I ask you to pray for me, for once age has overtaken us, we find consolation only in religion.
Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations.
Genius is the ability to renew one's emotions in daily experience.
Doubtless there are things in nature which have not yet been seen. If an artist discovers them, he opens the way for his successors.
The painter must enclose himself within his work; he must respond not with words, but with paintings.
Two sittings a day of my models and I'm totally exhausted.
We must not be content to memorize the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors. Let us go out and study beautiful nature.
Keep good company - that is, go to the Louvre.
For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.
A thousand painters ought to be killed yearly. Say what you like: I'm every inch a painter.
I have nothing to hide in art. The initial force alone can bring anyone to the end he must attain.
With a painter's temperament, all that's needed are the means of expression sufficient to be intelligible to the wide public.
