I believe that photography can create great works of art, but hitherto it has been extraordinarily bourgeois and babbling. (1908)

Man's naked form belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages.

He who is discouraged after a failure is not a real artist.

A mediocre man copying nature will never produce a work of art, because he really looks without seeing, and though he may have noted each detail minutely, the result will be flat and without character... the artist on the contrary, sees; that is to say, his eye, grafted on his heart, reads deeply into the bosom of nature.

I have unbounded admiration for the nude. I worship it like a god.

I believe that photography can create great works of art, but hitherto it has been extraordinarily bourgeois and babbling. (1908)

There is a continual exchange of ideas between all minds of a generation. Journalists, popular novelists, illustrators, and cartoonists adapt the truths discovered by the powerful intellects for the multitude. It is like a spiritual flood, like a gush that pours into multiple cascades until it forms the great moving sheet of water that stands for the mentality of a period.