“Those who do Negro-sculpture in this country are wrong. We are in France; in the country of Ronsard, La Fontaine, and Racine. What connection is there between this country and these men, and Negro sculpture? An artist can only create in accordance with the character of his people and his time.”

Source: Conversations with Judith Cladel (1939–1944), p. 407

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Those who do Negro-sculpture in this country are wrong. We are in France; in the country of Ronsard, La Fontaine, and R…" by Aristide Maillol?
Aristide Maillol photo
Aristide Maillol 18
sculptor from France 1861–1944

Related quotes

James Baldwin photo
Henry Moore photo

“The Negroes.... their unique claim for admiration is their power to produce form completely in the round... Negro sculpture is completely in the round, fully-conceived air-surrounded form.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Quote of Henri Moore in 'Unpublished notes', c. 1925-1926, HMF archive; as cited in Henry Moore writings and Conversations, ed. Alan Wilkinson, University of California Press, California 2002, p. 96
1925 - 1940

Stanley Baldwin photo

“For too long people have forgotten what a genius there is in the ordinary people of this country…the English stock is a true stock; and our people are the same people as those who built our cathedrals and our village churches: who carved the sculptures and who carved the screens inside them.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech upon receiving the Freedom of the City of Winchester (6 July 1928), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 115.
1928

Abraham Lincoln photo

“As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be take pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to longtime friend and slave-holder Joshua F. Speed (24 August 1855)
1850s, Letter to Joshua F. Speed (1855)
Context: You enquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I am a whig; but others say there are no whigs, and that I am an abolitionist. When I was at Washington I voted for the Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times, and I never heard of any one attempting to unwhig me for that. I now do more than oppose the extension of slavery.
I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be take pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].

Frederick Douglass photo

“It is only prejudice against the negro which calls every one, however nearly connected with the white race, and however remotely connected with the negro race, a negro.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The motive is not a desire to elevate the negro, but to humiliate and degrade those of mixed blood; not a desire to bring the negro up, but to cast the mulatto and the quadroon down by forcing him below an arbitrary and hated color line.
1880s, The Future of the Colored Race (1886)

“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

"Purely Personal Prejudices" http://books.google.com/books?id=DLcEAQAAIAAJ&q=%22The+difference+between+patriotism+and+nationalism++is+that+the+patriot+is+proud+of+his+country+for+what+it+does+and+the+nationalist+is+proud+of+his+country+no+matter+what+it+does+the+first+attitude+creates+a+feeling+of+responsibility+but+the+second+a+feeling+of+blind+arrogance+that+leads+to+war%22&pg=PA228#v=onepage
Strictly Personal (1953)

Douglas Murray photo
Stephen A. Douglas photo

“Lincoln maintains there that the Declaration of Independence asserts that the negro is equal to the white man, and that under Divine law, and if he believes so it was rational for him to advocate negro citizenship, which, when allowed, puts the negro on an equality under the law. I say to you in all frankness, gentlemen, that in my opinion a negro is not a citizen, cannot be, and ought not to be, under the Constitution of the United States. I will not even qualify my opinion to meet the declaration of one of the Judges of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, “that a negro descended from African parents, who was imported into this country as a slave is not a citizen, and cannot be.” I say that this Government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. I declare that a negro ought not to be a citizen, whether his parents were imported into this country as slaves or not, or whether or not he was born here. It does not depend upon the place a negro’s parents were born, or whether they were slaves or not, but upon the fact that he is a negro, belonging to a race incapable of self-government, and for that reason ought not to be on an equality with white men.”

Stephen A. Douglas (1813–1861) American politician

Fourth Lincoln-Douglass Debate http://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate4.htm (September 1858)
1850s

Marcus Garvey photo

“When the war started in Abyssinia all Negro nationalists looked with hope to Haile Selassie. They spoke for him, they prayed for him, they sung for him, they did everything to hold up his hands, as Aaron did for Moses; but whilst the Negro peoples of the world were praying for the success of Abyssinia this little Emperor was undermining the fabric of his own kingdom by playing the fool with white men, having them advising him[, ] having them telling him what to do, how to surrender, how to call off the successful thrusts of his [Race] against the Italian invaders. Yes, they were telling him how to prepare his flight, and like an imbecilic child he followed every advice and then ultimately ran away from his country to England, leaving his people to be massacred by the Italians, and leaving the serious white world to laugh at every Negro and repeat the charge and snare - "he is incompetent," "we told you so." Indeed Haile Selassie has proved the incompetence of the Negro for political authority, but thank God there are Negroes who realise that Haile Selassie did not represent the truest qualities of the Negro race. How could he, when he wanted to play white? How could he, when he surrounded himself with white influence? How could he, when in a modern world, and in a progressive civilization, he preferred a slave State of black men than a free democratic country where the black citizens could rise to the same opportunities as white citizens in their democracies?”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

The Failure of Haile Selassie as Emperor in The Blackman, April, 1937.

Aristide Maillol photo

Related topics