I Have Never Seen An Angel. Show

I Have Studied The Art Of The Masters And The Art Of The Moderns, Avoiding Any Preconceived System And Without Prejudice. I Have No More Wanted To Imitate The Former Than To Copy The Latter; Nor Have I Thought Of Achieving The Idle Aim Of Art For Art's Sake.

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.

France Is The Only Nation In Which Astoundingly Small Numbers Of Civilized Patrons Reside.

I Am Fifty Years Old And I Have Always Lived In Freedom; Let Me End My Life Free; When I Am Dead Let This Be Said Of Me: 'he Belonged To No School, To No Church, To No Institution, To No Academy, Least Of All To Any Regime Except The Regime Of Liberty.'

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).