“A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything.”

— Edgar Degas

Une peinture, c'est d'abord un produit de l'imagination de l'artiste, ce ne doit jamais être une copie. Si, ensuite, on peut y ajouter deux ou trois accents de nature, evidemment ca ne fait pas de mal.
Quoted by Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13
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Edgar Degas 67

French artist 1834–1917

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“I do not paint by copying nature. Everything I do springs from my wild imagination.”

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“Painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realizing sensations.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 46, in: 'What I know or have seen of his life'

“Man is above all else mind, consciousness -- that is, he is a product of history, not of nature.”

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist

“.. and then it remains you to re-create your study, the fragment, into a painting. For remember; these are two [different] things: Nature is the material from which we must take. But don't be fooled by the modern theories, that imitating, copying nature would be 'everything'. The goal, the Art's aim is …. to move..”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) ..en dan blijft u over, om de studie, het fragment, tot schilderij te herscheppen. Want vergeet niet, dat dat twee [verschillende] dingen zijn: De natuur is de stof, waaruit wij moeten putten. Maar laat u niet door de moderne (Jeltes: hij bedoelde hier waarschijnlijk de Belgische neo-impressionistische) theoriën wijsmaken, dat het navolgen, het copieeren der natuur 'alles' is. Het doel, het streven van de Kunst is.. ..te ontroeren..
Quote of Roelofs, in a letter to his pupil Frans Smissaert, 8 June 1886; as cited in Willem Roelofs (1822—1922), by Mr. H. F. W. Jeltes, in Maandschrift Elsevierweekblad... http://maandschrift.elsevierweekblad.nl/EGM/1922/01/19220101/EGM-19220101-0268/story.pdf, Jan. 1922, p. 222
1880's

“In French there is an old expression, 'la patte', meaning the artist's touch, his personal style, his 'paw'. I wanted to get away from la patte and all that retinal painting.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

posthumous

“The square is spiritually charged. It is the product of mankind, it is not copied from nature like the circle.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Het vierkant is een geestelijk geladen ding. Het is het product van de mens, het is niet afgekeken van de natuur zoals de cirkel.
Quote of Raveel, from his interview in the Dutch newspaper N.R.C., 1991; as cited by Din Pieters in 'Raveel: het vierkant als onbeschreven blad' https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/1996/01/05/raveel-het-vierkant-als-onbeschreven-blad-7294323-a1018022, in N.R.C.-online, 5 Jan. 1996 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1990's

“This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“Imagination's truth is from its power:
Man's genius can create when nature's felt;
He copies when he deems that he invents.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Translations, From the French

“Nature has mysterious infinities and imaginative power. It is always varying the productions it offers to us. The artist himself is one of nature's means.”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Source: 1870s - 1880s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), p. 39: 'Huysmans and Redon', (written in 1889, published 1953)

“Be sure, from nature never to depart;
To copy nature is the task of art.”
Praeterea haud lateat te nil conarier artem, Naturam nisi ut assimulet, propiusque sequatur. Hanc unam vates sibi proposuere magistram: Quicquid agunt, hujus semper vestigia servant.

Marco Girolamo Vida (1485–1566) Italian bishop

Book II, line 455
De Arte Poetica (1527)
Context: Be sure, from nature never to depart;
To copy nature is the task of art.
The noblest poets own her sovereign sway,
And ever follow where she leads the way.

“A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything.”

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Edgar Degas 67

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