Artist Quotes by Gustave Courbet

Fine art is knowledge made visible.

— Gustave Courbet

Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things.

— Gustave Courbet

I have never seen either angels or goddesses, so I am not interested in painting them.

— Gustave Courbet

The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

— Gustave Courbet

“Art in painting should consist only of the representation of things that are visible and tangible.”

— Gustave Courbet

It is fatal for art if it is forced into official respectability and condemned to sterile mediocrity.

— Gustave Courbet

I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota.

— Gustave Courbet

Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.

— Gustave Courbet

Art is a wholly physical language whose words are all the visible objects.

— Gustave Courbet

The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs…

— Gustave Courbet

I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota, without . . . having painted…

— Gustave Courbet

“It is not possible to have schools for painting; there are only painters. Schools have no use except for discerning the analytic…

— Gustave Courbet

Art or talent, for an artist, is merely a means of applying his personal faculties to the ideas and the things of…

— Gustave Courbet

“The real artists are those who pick up their age exactly at the point to which it has been carried by preceding…

— Gustave Courbet

I deny that art can be taught, or, in other words, maintain that art is completely individual, and that the talent of…

— Gustave Courbet

“To know in order to do, that was my idea. To be in a position to translate the customs, the ideas, the…

— Gustave Courbet

To be able to translate the customs, ideas and appearance of my times as I see them - in a word, to…

— Gustave Courbet

“I have studied the art of the ancients and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I…

— Gustave Courbet

Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things. It is a completely…

— Gustave Courbet

The state is not competent in artistic matters... When the state leaves us free, it will have carried out its duty.

— Gustave Courbet

Beauty lies in nature and reveals, once the artist has perceived it, its own expressive power.

— Gustave Courbet

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

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of…

— Gustave Courbet

I have studied the art of the masters and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I…

— Gustave Courbet