When I am no longer controversial, I will no longer be important

- Gustave Courbet

I have studied the art of the masters and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I have no more wanted to im…

- Gustave Courbet

Beauty lies in nature and reveals, once the artist has perceived it, its own expressive power.

- Gustave Courbet

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, t…

- Gustave Courbet

Art is a wholly physical language whose words are all the visible objects.

- Gustave Courbet

The principle of realism means denial of the ideal.

- Gustave Courbet

Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.

- Gustave Courbet

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it.

- Gustave Courbet

I have never seen either angels or goddesses, so I am not interested in painting them.

- Gustave Courbet