Best 21 quotes of Jean-baptiste Camille Corot on MyQuotes

Art is nature as seen through a temperament.

...Art itself may be defined as a single minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.

Beauty in art is truth bathed in an impression received from nature. I am struck upon seeing a certain place. While I strive for conscientious imitation, I yet never for an instant lose the emotion that has taken hold of me.

Be guided by feeling alone. We are only simple mortals, subject to error...

Be guided by feelings alone. Abandon yourself to your first impression. If you really have been touched, you will convey to others the sincerity of your emotion.

Do console your poor friend, who is so troubled to see his paintings so miserable, so sad, next to the radiant nature he has before his eyes!

Heavens, how charming it is! There is now in the sky only the soft vaporous color of pale citron - the last reflection of the sun which plunges into the dark blue of the night, going from green tones to a pale turquoise of an unheard-of fineness and a fluid delicacy quite indescribable.

I always entreat the good Lord to give me my childhood back, that is to say, to grant that I may see nature and render it like a child, without prejudice.

I am never in a hurry to reach details. First and above all I am interested in the large masses and the general character of a picture; when these are well established, then I try for subtleties of form and color. I rework the painting constantly and freely, and without any systematic method.

If my time has come I shall have nothing to complain of. For fifty-tree years I have been painting; so I have been able to devote myself entirely to what I loved best in the world. I had never suffered poverty; I had good parents and excellent friends; I can only thank God.

I hope with all my heart there will be painting in heaven.

It is better to be nothing than a follower of other painters. The wise man has said when one follows another one is always behind.

It seems to me very important to begin by an indication of the darkest values (assuming that the canvas is white), and to continue in order to the lightest value. From the darkest to the lightest I would establish twenty shades...

I work on all parts of my painting at once, improving it very gently until I find that the effect is complete.

Listen to the advice of others, but follow only what you understand and can unite in your own feeling. Be firm, be meek, but follow your own convictions. It is better to be nothing than an echo of other painters.

Never lose the first impression which has moved you.

Set up your study or picture in an orderly fashion. This order should not cramp either the linearist or the colorist... Never lose sight of that first impression by which you were moved.

The first things to study are form and values. For me, these are the things that are the basics of what is serious in art.

The most important things in a painting are Form and Value. Color comes last - like a friend you welcome.

You know, a landscape painter's day is delightful. You get up early, at three o'clock in the morning, before sunrise; you go and sit under a tree; you watch and wait. At first there is nothing much to be seen. Nature looks like a whitish canvas with a few broad outlines faintly sketched in; all is misty, everything quivers in the cool dawn breeze. The sky lights up. The sun has not yet burst through the gauze veil that hides the meadow, the little valley, the hill on the horizon... Ah, a first ray of sunshine!

One should embrace the artist's profession only after recognising in oneself an intense passion for Nature and the disposition to pursue it with a perseverance that nothing can shatter - thirst for neither approval nor financial profit. Do not be discouraged by the censure that might fall upon one's works - one must be armoured with a strong conviction which makes one go straight ahead fearing no obstacle. An unremitting task […] an unassailable conscience. (From a sketchbook of 1847).