17 quotes
One must be of one's time and paint what one sees.
Encyclopedia of Artists (2000)
Who is this Monet whose name sounds just like mine and who is taking advantage of my notoriety?
You must always remain master of the situation and do what you please. No school tasks, ah, no! no tasks!
Portrait of Manet by himself and his contemporaries (1960)
I was painting modern Paris while you were still painting Greek athletes..
The Bellevue air [suburb outside Paris with curative waters] has done me a world of good.. .But Alas! Naturalist painting is more in disfavor than ever.
He has no talent at all, that boy! You, who are his friend, tell him please to give up painting.
spoken to Claude Monet about Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1874)
Goodbye my dear Suzanne [his wife], your portraits are hanging in every corner of the bedroom, so I see you first and last thing..
I am influenced by everybody. [and Willem de Kooning admitted: 'every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there'].
You can do plein-air painting indoors, [to his pupil then, Berthe Morisot ] by painting white in the morning, lilac during the day and orange tones in the evening.
You can do plain-air painting indoors, [remark to his pupil then, Berthe Morisot ] by painting white in the morning, lilac during the day and orange tones in the evening.
You can deduce everything about a woman from the way she holds her feet. Seductive women always turn their feet out. Don't expect to get anywhere with a woman who turns her feet in.
I never imagined that France could be represented by such doddering old fools, not excepting that little twit Thiers...
In art, conciseness is both a necessity and a luxury; a concise man provokes thought, a wordy man provokes boredom; always move towards conciseness. In the figure, look for the main light and the main shadow, the rest will come of itself: often, it amounts to very little.
I beg you, if I die, don't let me go piecemeal into the public collections, my work would not be fairly judged. I want to get in complete or not at all.. .Please, please, promise me one thing, never let my things go into a museum piecemeal.
What a pelisse! It's tawny brown with an old gold lining – staggering. It will make a wonderful background for some things I'm thinking of doing. Promise that when it's worn out you'll give it to me [Méry promised!].
No one knows what it feels like to be constantly insulted [by art-critics in Paris]. It sickens and destroys you.. .The fools! They've never stopped telling me I'm inconsistent [in his painting style]; they couldn't have said anything more flattering.
In a face, look for the main light and the main shadow; the rest will come naturally — it's often not important. And then you must cultivate your memory, because Nature will only provide you with references. Nature is like a warden in a lunatic asylum. It stops you from becoming banal.
Portrait of Manet by himself and his contemporaries (1960)