Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"I would never have taken up painting if women did not have breasts."

"What seems most significant to me about our movement is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to…"

"He was very happy but very nervous .. .In short, I think I spent my time well, thirty five minutes is not long, but if I had stopped sooner it would have been better, because my model ended up by losi…"

"I want to give something I can't be sure of doing again. I could do ten more nudes like that one , whenever I liked.. .This one turned out well. I don't think I'd be able to do that again."

"What I like so much about Corot is that he can say everything with a bit of tree; and it was Corot himself that I found in the museum of Naples – in the simplicity of the work of Pompeii and the Egypt…"

"The so-called 'discoveries' of the Impressionists could not have been unknown to the old masters; and if they made no use of them, it was because all great artists have renounced the use of effects. A…"

"..not exactly prostitutes, but a class of unattached young women, characteristic of the Parisian scene before and after the Empire, changing lovers easily, satisfying any whim, going nonchalantly from…"

"Landscapes are useful to a figure painter, too; out-of-doors one uses colours one would never think of in the weaker studio light. But landscape painting is a thankless job; you waste half a day for t…"