As I am working for the public, I must continue to amuse them. - Francisco Goya

I can hardly describe the discord produced by the comparison of the retouched part of the painting and the part left untouched, the former having lost entirely the immediacy and brio of the brushwork and the latter the mastery of sensitive and discerning touches.. .For it is true that the more one retouches under the pretext of restoration, the more harm one does, and even the artists themselves, were they able to return, would not able to retouch their painting perfectly on account of the necessary change in the hue of pigments over time... No painting by Titian should be relined, nor any paintings by a number of other painters.. ..and, even when it is possible, the operation is more likely to result in deterioration than in improvement of the painting.

The author had not followed the precedents of any other artist, nor has he been able to copy Nature itself.. ..He who departs from Nature will surely merits high esteem, since he has to put before thee yes of the public forms and poses which have existed previously in the darkness and confusion of an irrational mind..

..[to capture] the magic of the ambiance. - [in the fresco which Goya made c. 1798 of Saint Anthony of Padua ]