It Is Fatal For Art

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 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.

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

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).

I Have Never Seen Either Angels Or Goddesses, So I Am Not Interested In Painting Them.