"We should try to return to our youth, to work naively; this is what I see, and it is why I have such success, because our century has tried to return to the primitive. I work as if no art had ever been made, before me, as if I had never learned anything. I am the first man to do sculpture."
Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol was a French Catalan sculptor, painter, and printmaker.
"The particular does not interest me; I find meaning only in a general idea. In Michelangelo one is carried away by the idea of power, the whole single-minded concept he imposed on himself. The Slaves and the Medici tombs are sculpture made to be seen only from one side. For me, sculpture means the block; my figure of France has more than twenty different sides. When I enlarged it only four were left, and I had to rework it.."
"He [ Renoir; Maillol made his bust] was very interested, watching me do his bust. He said to me: Every time you touch it, it becomes more alive."
"Mademoiselle, I am told that you look like a Renoir and Maillol [as a model]. I would be happy with a Renoir."
"The more immobile Egyptian statues are, the more it seems as if they would move.. ..immobility of the body does not mean immobility of the flesh; in my model for the monument to Cézanne the whole figure is quiet, but there are several movements in the torso."
"My sculpture is altogether different from Rodin’s.. ..In sculpture he [Rodin] always sees the flesh first. [answering his critics]"
"The first thing that strikes [one] in Cézanne is not apples, but balance of tones. With elements drawn from nature, what did [Cézanne] attempt? To create, to arouse powerful feeling, to awaken in the hearts of men that which is eternal in men."