Gustave Courbet citáty

„Všichni jsme zrozeni k tomu, abychom milovali, avšak sotva k tomu, abychom byli milováni.“

—  Gustave Courbet

„Maluj, co vidíš, co cítíš a co chceš.“

—  Gustave Courbet

Zdroj: [Kalendárium, ceskatelevize.cz, 2011-03-21, http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1095927644-kalendarium/3153-vyhledavani/?searchType=date&kMonth=12&kDay=31]

„Nikdo není větším milovníkem než ten, kdo je omezován tím, co miluje.“

—  Gustave Courbet

„Velikost lásky je v tom, že spěje od objevení hrubé lásky k poznání jejich jemností.“

—  Gustave Courbet

„Láska se zrodila, aby se toulala světem a neustále se vzrušovala jeho kouzlem; ne aby dřepěla doma za pecí a vysušovala se jako syrové dřevo. Je to vlastně přelétavý pták, který na chvilku u každého spočine.“

—  Gustave Courbet

„Nesmělost je nejen v rozporu s přirozeností milenců, ale odporuje samotným přírodním zákonům lásky.“

—  Gustave Courbet

„Soucit je nejprudší jed lásky.“

—  Gustave Courbet

„The history of an era is finished with that era itself and with those of its representatives who have expressed it. It is not the task of modern times to add anything to the expression of former times to ennoble or embellish the past. What has been, has been. The human spirit must always begin work afresh in the present, starting off from acquired results. One must never start out from foregone conclusions proceeding from synthesis to synthesis, from conclusion to conclusion. The real artists are those who pick up their age exactly at the point to which it has been carried by preceding times.“

—  Gustave Courbet

1860s, Realist Manifesto' - an open letter, 1861

„I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.“

—  Gustave Courbet

In a letter of Gustave Courbet (1869); in Letters of Gustave Courbet, 1992, University of Chicago Press, transl. Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu, ISBN 0226116530
1860s

„.. in our civilized society I must lead the life of a savage. I must free myself even from governments. My sympathies lies with the people; I must go to them directly. I must draw my wisdom from them, and they must give me life. For that reason I have just embarked on the grand, independent and vagabond life of the bohemian.“

—  Gustave Courbet

In a letter, (1850) to his friend Francis Wey; as quoted in 'Gustave Courbet', by Georges Riat, Parkstone International, 15 Sep 2015,
1840s - 1850s

„To know in order to do, that was my idea. To be in a position to translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my time, according to my own estimation; to be not only a painter, but a man as well; in short, to create living art – this is my goal. (Gustave Courbet, 1855) - note“

—  Gustave Courbet

Courbet wrote this 'Realist manifesto' for the introduction to the catalogue of his independent, personal exhibition at the Pavilion of Realism in Paris, outside the 1855 Universal Exhibition. His text is echoing the tone of the period's political manifestos of those days
1840s - 1850s, Realist Manifesto', 1851/1855

„I have studied the art of the ancients and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I no longer wanted to imitate the one than to copy the other; nor, furthermore, was it my intention to attain the trivial goal of "art for art's sake". No! I simply wanted to draw forth, from a complete acquaintance with tradition, the reasoned and independent consciousness of my own individuality.“

—  Gustave Courbet

1840s - 1850s, Realist Manifesto', 1851/1855

„Without expanding on the greater or lesser accuracy of a name which nobody, I should hope, can really be expected to understand, I will limit myself to a few words of elucidation in order to cut short the misunderstandings.“

—  Gustave Courbet

1840s - 1850s, Realist Manifesto', 1851/1855

„I must explain to you what I recently had the occasion to tell the congress at Antwerp: I do not have, I cannot have, pupils.“

—  Gustave Courbet

1860s, Realist Manifesto' - an open letter, 1861

„.. there's nothing harder in the world than making art, particularly when no one understands it. Women want portraits without shadow, men want to be dressed up in their Sunday best; there's no way out. To earn money with things like that, you'd be better of walking on a treadmill. At least then you would not be abdicating your convictions.“

—  Gustave Courbet

In his letter (Paris, January 1846); as quoted in 'Gustave Courbet', by Georges Riat, Parkstone International, 2015,
1840s - 1850s

„Schools have no use except for discerning the analytic procedures of art. No school is capable of pressing on to a synthesis in isolation. Painting can not, without falling into abstraction, let a partial aspect of art dominate, whether it be drawing, color, composition, or any other one of the extraordinary multiplicity of means the totality of which alone constitutes this art.“

—  Gustave Courbet

1860s, Realist Manifesto' - an open letter, 1861

„Beauty, like truth, is a thing which is relative to the time in which one lives and to the individual capable of understanding it. The expression of the beautiful bears a precise relation to the power of perception acquired by the artist.“

—  Gustave Courbet

1860s, Realist Manifesto' - an open letter, 1861

„An epoch can only be reproduced by its own artists, I mean by the artists who lived in it. I hold the artists of one century basically incapable of reproducing the aspect of a past or future century-in other words, of painting the past or the future.“

—  Gustave Courbet

1860s, Realist Manifesto' - an open letter, 1861

„It is the most wretched spectacle you can imagine. I won't fight for two reasons: firstly because I have no faith in waging war with guns and cannons, and it is not part of my creed. For ten years I have been fighting a war of wits. I would not be true to myself if I acted otherwise. Secondly, I have no weapons and I won't be persuaded. So you have nothing to fear where I am concerned“

—  Gustave Courbet

Quote from a letter to his parents, (June 1848); as cited 'Gustave Courbet', by Georges Riat, Parkstone International, 2015,
1840s - 1850s