"When Picasso does pure painting he is a great artist. When he paints as an cubist, putting one tone next to another, the arrangement of planes is fine and the result very strong. But those who imitate him achieve nothing worthwhile."
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."
"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."
"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."
"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."