AUGUSTE RENOIR

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.

The pain passes, but the beauty remains.

There are quite enough unpleasant things in life without the need to manufacture more.

The so-called 'discoveries' of the Impressionists could not have been unknown to the old masters; and if they made no use of them, it was because all great artists have renounced the use of effects. And in simplifying nature, they made it all the greater.

The advantage of growing old is that you become aware of your mistakes more quickly.

I've known painters who never did any good work because instead of painting their models they seduced them.

Berthe Morisot was a painter full of eighteenth-century delicacy and grace; in a word, the last elegant and 'feminine' artists since Fragonard.

God, the king of artists, was clumsy.

Why should beauty be suspect?

To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.

There are two indices of genuine art: it is inimitable and it is ineffable.

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

If the professional schools should succeed in producing skilled workers trained in the technique of their craft, nothing could be done with them if they had no ideal.

I had wrung impressionism dry and I finally came to the conclusion that I know neither how to paint nor how to draw.

I arrange my subject as I want it, then I go ahead and paint it, like a child.

To get someone to pose, you have to be very good friends and above all speak the language.

Do not think that it is possible to repeat another period.

Paint with joy - with the same joy that you would make love to a woman.

People will keep on taking them for theorists, when all they wanted was to paint in gay, bright colours, like the old masters.

I have no rules and no methods... no secrets.

I would never have taken up painting if women did not have breasts.

Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character.

It is impossible to repeat in one period what was done in another.The pointof view isnotthesame, anymorethan are the tools, the ideals, the needs, or the painters' techniques.

A painter who has the feel of breasts and buttocks is saved.

Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of a work of art? First, it must be indescribable, and second, it must be inimitable.