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Let's not eliminate nature. Too bad if we fail. You see, in his 'Dejeuner sur l'herbe', Manet ought to have added - I don't know what - a touch of this nobility, whatever it is in this picture that conveys heaven to our every sense. Look at the golden flow of the tall woman, the other one's back.. .They are alive and they are divine.

— Paul Cézanne Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations (1897)

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More quotes by Paul Cézanne

For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.

To my mind one does not put oneself in place of the past, one only adds a new link.

Painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realizing sensations.

Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations (1897)

With a painter's temperament, all that's needed are the means of expression sufficient to be intelligible to the wide public.

Everybody's going crazy over the Impressionists; what art needs is a Poussin made over according to nature. There you have it in a nutshell.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Paul Cézanne (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.