A painter must not only be of necessity an imitator of the works of nature...but he must be as necessarily an imitator of the works of other painters: this appears more humiliating, but is equally true; and no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any other terms.

Good painters imitate nature, but bad ones spew it up.

I say that good painters imitated nature; but that bad ones vomited it.

In general: the true artist is always true to his art; the impostor is self-conscious, demonstrating his idea, projecting his theory, his ego, and e.g. the figures of the painter are not borrowed ideas who demonstrate themselves talking, dying, dreaming - they dot it. They are not of themselves and they LIVE! -And the flowers are not showing us how pretty they are, or how weird. They are what they are - Etc.! No invention for the sake of invention! Invention must serve the purpose of art.

The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.

It is odd that Edouard [Manet] with his reputation as an innovator, who has survived such storms of criticism, should suddenly be seen as a classicist. It just proves the imbecility of the public, for he has always been a classic painter.

Painting is first of all the art of imitation, and not the servant of some imaginary 'purity'

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

I grant you that the artist does not see Nature as she appears to the vulgar, because his emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath appearances.
But, after all, the only principle in Art is to copy what you see. Dealers in esthetics to the contrary, every other method is fatal. There is no recipe for improving nature.

Artists who don't paint aren't artists.

Artists who don't paint aren't artists.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

All art is but imitation of nature.

The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard: but if he will apply himself to learn from the objects of nature he will produce good results. This we see was the case with the painters who came after the time of the Romans, for they continually imitated each other, and from age to age their art steadily declined.