Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877)
French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting.
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Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things. It is a completely physical language, the words of which consist of all visible objects. An object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.
I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.
In our so very civilized society it is necessary for me to live the life of a savage. I must be free, even of governments.The people have my sympathies. I must address them directly.
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