Draughtsmen May Be Made, But

Mythological Subjects Always New. Modern Subjects Difficult Because Of The Absence Of The Nude And The Wretchedness Of Modern Costume.

I Am Carrying Out My Plan, So Long Formulated, Of Keeping A Journal. What I Most Keenly Wish Is Not To Forget That I Am Writing For Myself Alone. Thus I Shall Always Tell The Truth, I Hope, And Thus I Shall Improve Myself. These Pages Will Reproach Me For My Changes Of Mind.

The Living Model Never Answers Well The Idea Or Impressions The Painter Wishes To Express; One Must, Therefore, Learn To Do Without One, And For That, You Must Acquire Facility, Furnish One's Memory To The Point Of Infinitude, And Make Numerous Drawings After The Old Masters.

Cold Exactitude Is Not Art; Ingenious Artifice, When It Pleases Or When It Expresses, Is Art Itself.

If Painters Left Nothing Of Themselves After Their Deaths, So That We Were Obliged To Rank Them As We Do Actors According To The Judgment Of Their Contemporaries, How Different Their Reputations Would Be From What Posterity Has Made Them!