Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"I studied a good deal in the museum at Naples; the Pompeian paintings are extremely interesting from every aspect. So I am staying in the sun – not to paint portraits but while I am warming myself and looking hard at things I hope I will have acquired some of the grandeur and simplicity of the old masters. Raphael didnt work out-of-doors, but he studied the sunlight all the same – his frescoes are full of it. So, by looking around outside, I have finished by seeing only the broad harmonies, and am no longer preoccupied with the little details, which only extinguish the sunlight, instead of increasing its brilliance. I hope therefore, when I get back to Paris, to produce something which will be the outcome of all these general studies, and to give you the benefit of them [in a letter written during his three-weeks-stay, working with Paul Cezanne at lEstaque, near Marseille]"

"If I was accused of neglecting my art, or sacrificing my ideas for the sake of stupid ambition, then I would understand the critics; but as that isnt the case, there is nothing to be said. I sent a picture to the Salon for purely commercial reasons. Anyway, it is like some medicines – even if it does no good, it does no harm. [other impressionist artists then refused to send in their work to the Salon]"

"Shall I tell you what I have seen in Venice? Right – here goes. Take a boat along the Seine to the Quai des Orfevres, or opposite the Tuileries [Paris] and you will see Venice. For the Museums, go to the Louvre, For Veronese, go to the Louvre,- but not for Tiepolo, whom I didnt know; only it is a bit dear at the price. No – that isnt true; it is very, very beautiful, when the weather is fine. The lagoon and San Marco – splendid; the Doges palace, splendid. As for the rest, Id rather have Saint German lAuxerrois."

"What I like so much about Corot is that he can say everything with a bit of tree; and it was Corot himself that I found [back] in the museum of Naples – in the simplicity of the work of Pompeii and the Egyptians. These priestesses in their silver-grey tunics are just like Corots nymphs."

"Nature abhors a vacuum, say the physicists. They could complete their axiom by adding that it has no less a horror of regularity. Observers know in effect that in spite of the apparent simplicity of the laws which preside at their formulation, the works of nature are infinitely varied, from the most important to the least... At this time when our French art, still at the beginning of this century so full of penetrating charm and exquisite fantasy, is perishing because of regularity, dryness, and the mania of false perfection that now tends to make the unadorned cleanliness of the engineer into the ideal, we think it is useful to react promptly against the mortal doctrines which threaten to annihilate it..."

"[ Bazille..] had not died romantically, galloping over a Delacroix battlefield.. ..but stupidly, during the retreat, on a muddy road.. ..that pure-hearted gentle knight.. [quote, shortly after 1870, on the death of Bazille]."