“For a man who is sensitive to nature, happiness consists in expressing nature. How infinitely happy, then, is the man who reflects nature like a mirror without being aware of it, who does the thing for love of it and not from any pretensions to take first place. This noble unself-consciousness is what we find in all truly great men, in the founders of the arts. I picture the great Poussin, in his retreat, delighting in the study of the human heart.... I picture Raphael in the arms of his mistress, turning from La Fornarina to paint his Saint Cecilia.... I am only too well aware that I am far not only from their divine spirit, but even from their modest simplicity…”

— Eugène Delacroix

Quote in a letter to Delacroix' friend J. B. Pierret, 23 October 1818, from the Forest of Boixe; as quoted in Eugene Delacroix – selected letters 1813 – 1863, ed. and transl. Jean Stewart, art Works MFA publications, Museum of Fine Art Boston, 2001, p. 43
1815 - 1830

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 11, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For a man who is sensitive to nature, happiness consists in expressing nature. How infinitely happy, then, is the man w…" by Eugène Delacroix?

Eugène Delacroix 50

French painter 1798–1863

Related quotes

“When you wish to see whether the general effect of your picture corresponds with that of the object represented after nature, take a mirror and set it so that it reflects the actual thing, and then compare the reflection with your picture, and consider carefully whether the subject of the two images is in conformity with both, studying especially the mirror. The mirror ought to be taken as a guide… you see the picture made upon one plane showing things which appear in relief, and the mirror upon one plane does the same. The picture is on one single surface, and the mirror is the same. …if you but know well how to compose your picture it will also seem a natural thing seen in a great mirror.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

“Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.”

Alphonse de Lamartine book Méditations poétiques

Méditations Poétiques (1820), Sermon 2

“Artists are mechanics who work with their hands, making things. Artists are involved with the means of creativity, the nature of skills, the revelation of making. Art comes from the work, I see a painting as an expressive entity. There's no picture that I know of where the subject carries as much expressive possibility as the actual execution of the picture.”

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Kenneth Noland, p. 9
Conversation with Karen Wilkin' (1986-1988)

“An art thief is a man who takes pictures.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, Napalm and Silly Putty (2001)

“The aim of my work: The study of nature, the love of nature's art, and the need to express what one feels in one's heart.”

Émile Gallé (1846–1904) French glass artist and cabinetmaker

Ecrits pour l'art, ed. Henrietta Galle Paris 1908/Marseille (1980).

“They speak of naturalism in opposition to modern painting. I would like to know if anyone has ever seen a natural work of art. Nature and art, being two different things, cannot be the same thing. Through art we express our conception of what nature is not. Velasquez left us his idea of the people of his epoch. Undoubtedly they were different from what he painted them, but we cannot conceive a Philip IV in any other way than the one Velasquez painted…”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Paris 1923
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 312
Quotes, 1920's

“The great man is the one who does not lose his child's heart.”

Mencius (-372–-289 BC) Chinese philosopher

Book 4, pt. 2, v. 12
Variant translations by Lin Yutang:
A great man is one who has not lost the child's heart.
A great man is he who has not lost the heart of a child.
The Mencius

“Indian thought has greatly attracted me since in my youth I first became acquainted with it through reading the works of Arthur Schopenhauer. From the very beginning I was convinced that all thought is really concerned with the great problem of how man can attain to spiritual union with infinite Being. My attention was drawn to Indian thought because it is busied with this problem and because by its nature it is mysticism. What I liked about it also was that Indian ethics are concerned with the behaviour of man to all living beings and not merely with his attitude to his fellow-man and to human society.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Preface, p. vi
Indian Thought And Its Development (1936)

“The world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self. Man's real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self. Man's search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self. The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

“Nothing is more unmannerly than to reflect on any man's profession, sect, or natural infirmity. He who stirs up against himself another's self-love, provokes the strongest passion in human nature.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Eugène Delacroix 50

Related quotes

Related topics