A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared.

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

Art is limited to the infinite, and beginning there cannot progress.

A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared.

Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.

Art should be independent of all clap-trap - should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it; and that is why I insist on calling my works 'arrangements' and 'harmonies.

The work of a master reeks not of the sweat of the brow - suggests no effort - and is finished from its beginning.