“To produce good sculpture it is not necessary to copy the works of antiquity; it is necessary first of all to regard the works of nature, and to see in those of the classics only the method by which they have interpreted nature.”

Attributed to Auguste Rodin by Isadora Duncan, As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.
1900s-1940s

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 "To produce good sculpture it is not necessary to copy the works of antiquity; it is necessary first of all to regard th…" by Auguste Rodin?
Auguste Rodin photo
Auguste Rodin 73
French sculptor 1840–1917

Related quotes

Jacques Lipchitz photo

“Copy nature and you infringe on the work of our Lord. Interpret nature and you are an artist.”

Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973) American and French sculptor

Jacques Lipchitz cited in: Bernard S. Raskas (1976). Living thoughts: inspiration, insight, and wisdom from sources throughout the ages. p. 22; Quoted in: William Safire, ‎Leonard Safir (1990). Words of Wisdom. p. 34

Benvenuto Cellini photo

“All works of nature created by God in heaven and on earth are works of sculpture.”

Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) Florentine sculptor and goldsmith

Tutte le opera, che si veggono fatte dallo Iddio della Natura in cielo ed in terra, sono tutte di Scultura.
Treatise on Sculpture (1564), opening words, cited from G. P. Carpani (ed.) Vita di Benvenuto Cellini (Milano: Nicolo Bettoni, 1821) vol. 3, p. 199; translation from Jean Paul Richter (ed.) The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci (London: Phaidon, 1970) vol. 1, p. 90.

Edgar Degas photo

“It is very good to copy what one sees; it is much better to draw what you can't see any more but is in your memory. It is a transformation in which imagination and memory work together. You only reproduce what struck you, that is to say the necessary.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

C'est très bien de copier ce qu'on voit, c'est beaucoup mieux de dessiner ce que l'on ne voit plus que dans son mémoire. C'est une transformation pendant laquelle l'ingéniosité collabore avec la mémoire. Vous ne reproduisez que ce qui vous a frappé, c'est-à-dire le nécessaire.
Quoted in Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13
quotes, undated

“The word (classical) carries the implication that the works of art and literature produced in Graeco-Roman antiquity possess an absolute value, that they form the standard by which all others are to be judged.”

Jasper Griffin (1937–2019) Public Orator and Professor of Classical Literature

The Oxford History of the Classical World (with John Boardman and Oswyn Murray, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) p. 3

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Epicurus photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature" (1863) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE2/Phen.html
1860s

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Those men who are inventors and interpreters between Nature and Man, as compared with boasters and declaimers of the works of others, must be regarded and not otherwise esteemed than as the object in front of a mirror, when compared with its image seen in the mirror. For the first is something in itself, and the other nothingness.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Folks little indebted to Nature, since it is only by chance that they wear the human form and without it I might class them with the herds of beasts.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Auguste Rodin photo
Leopold II of Belgium photo

“In dealing with a race composed of cannibals for thousands of years, it is necessary to use methods which will best shape their idleness, and make them realize the sanctity of work.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Quotes related to the Congo Free State
Source: King Leopold's Ghost https://vimeo.com/ondemand/kingleopoldsghost Newspaper interview, 1906.

Related topics