Art is a wholly physical language whose words are all the visible objects. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
The state is not competent in artistic matters... When the state leaves us free, it will have carried out its duty. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
Beauty lies in nature and reveals, once the artist has perceived it, its own expressive power. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
“Art in painting should consist only of the representation of things that are visible and tangible.” — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
It is fatal for art if it is forced into official respectability and condemned to sterile mediocrity. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
“To know in order to do, that was my idea. To be in a position to translate the customs, the ideas, the… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
To be able to translate the customs, ideas and appearance of my times as I see them - in a word, to… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
I hope always to earn my living by my art without having ever deviated by even a hair's breadth from my principles...… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
I have studied the art of the masters and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota, without . . . having painted… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
Art or talent, for an artist, is merely a means of applying his personal faculties to the ideas and the things of… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things. It is a completely… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
“I have studied the art of the ancients and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
“It is not possible to have schools for painting; there are only painters. Schools have no use except for discerning the analytic… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
“The real artists are those who pick up their age exactly at the point to which it has been carried by preceding… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
I deny that art can be taught, or, in other words, maintain that art is completely individual, and that the talent of… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share Image
“Art in painting should consist only of the representation of things that are visible and tangible.” — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
Titles have never given a just idea of things; were it otherwise, the work would be superfluous. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
When I am dead, let it be said of me: he belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy,… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
“The title of Realist was thrust upon me just as the title of Romantic was imposed upon the men of 1830. Titles have never… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
France is the only nation in which astoundingly small numbers of civilized patrons reside. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
“The real artists are those who pick up their age exactly at the point to which it has been carried by preceding times. To… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
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… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
Without trying to clear up the degree of correctness of a qualification which no one, one must hope, will be asked to understand exactly,… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
On the left is the realist tradition of the 19th century, with its impulse to social description, radical criticism and meditation on things as… — Gustave Courbet Copy Share
