One must do the same subject over again ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must resemble an accident, not even movement.

The museums are here to teach the history of art and something more as well, for, if they stimulate in the weak a desire to imitate, they furnish the strong with the means of their emancipation.

Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.

People call me the painter of dancers, but I really wish to capture movement itself.

One must do the same subject over again ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must resemble an accident, not even movement.

The frame is the pimp of painting; it enhances it, but it must never shine at the painting's expense.

The artist does not draw what he sees, but what he must make others see. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. A picture is first of all a product of the imagination of the artist; it must never be a copy. If then two or three natural accents can be added, obviously no harm is done. The air we see in the paintings of the old masters is never the air we breathe.