Art Or Talent, For An

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.

Painting Is The Representation Of Visible Forms. The Essence Of Realism Is Its Negation Of The Ideal.

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

Art Is A Wholly Physical Language Whose Words Are All The Visible Objects.

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).