Edouard Manet famous quotes

03-18-2025

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.
-- Edouard Manet

#Imagination #Feelings #Crafts
There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another.
-- Edouard Manet

#Lines #Colour
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 universal figure and still keep it living and real.
-- Edouard Manet

#Real #Believe #Canvas
There is only one true thing: Instantly paint what you see.
-- Edouard Manet

#Paint
Black is not a color.
-- Edouard Manet

#Color #Black
The latest fashionâ€¦ is absolutely necessary for a painting. Itâ€™s what matters most.
-- Edouard Manet

#Fashion #What Matters #Matter
Color is a matter of taste and sensitivity.
-- Edouard Manet

#Color #Matter #Taste
I would kiss you, had I the courage.
-- Edouard Manet

#Kissing
Every time I paint, I throw myself into the water in order to learn how to swim.
-- Edouard Manet

#Order #Water #Swim
Conciseness in art is essential and a refinement. The concise man makes one think; the verbose bores. Always work towards conciseness.
-- Edouard Manet

#Art #Men #Thinking
You must always remain master of the situation and do what you please. No school tasks, ah, no! no tasks!
-- Edouard Manet

#School #Tasks #Masters
The country only has charms for those not obliged to stay there.
-- Edouard Manet

#Country #Charm
The principal person in a picture is light.
-- Edouard Manet

#Light #Vision #Persons
Above all, keep your colors fresh!
-- Edouard Manet

#Color
In a face, look for the main light and the main shadow; the rest will come naturally â€” it's often not important. And then you must cultivate your memory, because Nature will only provide you with references. Nature is like a warden in a lunatic asylum. It stops you from becoming banal.
-- Edouard Manet

#Memories #Light #Shadow
There is no symmetry in nature. One eye is never exactly the same as the other.
-- Edouard Manet

#Eye #Symmetry
I need to work to feel well.
-- Edouard Manet

#Work #Needs #Wells
If I'm lucky, when I paint, first my patrons leave the room, then my dealers, and if I'm really lucky I leave too.
-- Edouard Manet

#Rooms #Firsts #Lucky
There's no symmetry in nature. One eye is never exactly the same as the other. There's always a difference. We all have a more or less crooked nose and an irregular mouth.
-- Edouard Manet

#Eye #Differences #Portraiture
I paint as I feel like painting; to hell with all their studies.
-- Edouard Manet

#Study #Painting #Hell
Every new painting is like throwing myself into the water without knowing how to swim.
-- Edouard Manet

#Knowing #Water #Swim
This woman's work is exceptional. Too bad she's not a man.
-- Edouard Manet

#Men #Exceptional
Insults are pouring down on me as thick as hail.
-- Edouard Manet

#Pouring #Comeback #Insult
Concision in art is a necessity and an elegance. The verbose painter bores: who will get rid of all these trimmings?
-- Edouard Manet

#Art #Elegance #Trimming
Who is this Monet whose name sounds just like mine and who is taking advantage of my notoriety?
-- Edouard Manet

#Names #Sound #Advantage
One must be of one's time and paint what one sees.
-- Edouard Manet

#Paint
The attacks of which I have been the object have broken the spring of life in me... People don't realize what it feels like to be constantly insulted.
-- Edouard Manet

#Spring #People #Broken
There is only one true thing: instantly paint what you see. When you've got it, you've got it. When you haven't, you begin again. All the rest is humbug.
-- Edouard Manet

#Paint #Begin Again #Humbug
No one can be a painter unless he cares for painting above all else.
-- Edouard Manet

#Care #Painting #Painter
I paint what I see and not what others like to see.
-- Edouard Manet

#Paint

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