Édouard Manet

“To be a painter, you must be a poet and a musician.”

“It is not enough to know your craft - you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.”

“One must be of one's time and paint what one sees.”

“There are no lines in nature, only areas of color, one against another.”

“Concision in art is a necessity and an elegance.”

“I paint what I see, and not what others like to see.”

“The principal person in a picture is the light.”

“You would hardly believe how difficult it is to place a figure alone on a canvas, and to concentrate all the interest on this single and unique figure and still keep it living and real.”

“Black is a force; I use black as a color. It is not the absence of light, but a color in itself.”

“Insults are pouring down on me as thick as hail.”

“No one is a painter unless he is in love with painting.”