Real beauty in the arts is eternal and would be accepted at all periods; but it wears the dress of its century: something of that dress clings to it, and woe to the works which appear in periods when the general taste is corrupted.

The source of genius is imagination alone.

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.

What is real for me are the illusions I create with my paintings. Everything else is quicksand.

All painting worth its name, unless one is talking about black and white, must include the idea of color as one of its necessary supports, in the same way that it includes chiaroscuro, proportion, and perspective.

Talent does whatever it wants to do. Genius does only what it can.

Everyone knows that yellow, orange, and red suggest ideas of joy and plenty. I can paint you the skin of Venus with mud, provided you let me surround it as I will.