He (the painter Manet) hits of the tone.. ..but his work lacks unity and temperament too. (ca. 1863) - Paul Cézanne

A builder. A rough and ready plasterer. A colour grinder. He Courbet is like a Roman bricklayer. And yet he's another true painter. There's no one in this century that surpasses him. Even though he rolls up his sleeves, plugs up his ears, demolishes columns, his workmanship is classical!.. .His view was always compositional. His vision remained traditional. Like his palette-knife, he used it only out of doors. He was sophisticated and brought his work to a high finish.. .His great contribution is the poetic introduction of nature - the smell of damp leaves, mossy forest cuttings - into nineteenth century painting; the murmur of rain, woodlands shadows, sunlight moving under trees. The sea. And snow, he painted snow like no one else!

I'd like to combine melancholy and sunshine.. .There's a sadness in Provence which no one has expressed; Poussin would have shown it in terms of some tomb, underneath the poplars of the Alyscamps.. .I'd like to put reason in the grass and tears in the sky, like Poussin.. .You really need to see and feel your subject very clearly, and then If I express myself with distinction and power, there's my Poussin, there's my classicism..

Wouldn't it be wonderful to paint a nude here? [along the river near Aix ] There are innumerable motifs here on the banks of the river; the same spot viewed from a different angle offers a subject of the utmost interest. It is so varied that I think I could keep busy for months without changing my place, simply turning now tot the right and now to the left.