Strain your brain more than your eye... You can copy a thing to a certain limit. Then you must use intellect.

When you first commence painting everything is a muddle. Even the commonest colors seem to have the devil in them.

The brush is a more powerful and rapid tool than the point or the stump... the main thing that the brush secures is the instant grasp of the grand construction of a figure.

Strain your brain more than your eye... You can copy a thing to a certain limit. Then you must use intellect.

The big artist .. . keeps a sharp eye on Nature and steals her tools.

I taught in the Academy from the opening of the schools until I was turned out, a period much longer than I should have permitted myself to remain there. My honors are misunderstanding, persecution and neglect, enhanced because unsought.

No man, and least of all myself, could ever disentangle the feelings that animated him.