Even with all the documents, you can never forge nature

Mere exactitude, of which photography and moulage [life casting] are the lowest forms, does not inspire feelings.

To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth.

Recently I have taken to isolating limbs, the torso. Why am I blamed for it? Why is the head allowed and not portions of the body? Every part of the human figure is expressive.

Even with all the documents, you can never forge nature

The sculptor represents the transition from one pose to another he indicates how insensibly the first glides into the second. In his work we still see a part of what was and we discover a part of what is to be.

In short, Beauty is everywhere. It is not that she is lacking to our eye, but our eyes which fail to perceive her. Beauty is character and expression. Well, there is nothing in nature which has more character than the human body. In its strength and its grace it evokes the most varied images. One moment it resembles a flower: the bending torso is the stalk; the breasts, the head, and the splendor of the hair answer to the blossoming of the corolla. The next moment it recalls the pliant creeper, or the proud and upright sapling.