Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Quotes

32 Sourced Quotes

Doubt itself is blameworthy when we are considering the marvels of the ancients.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
We must copy nature always and learn to see it well. It is for that purpose that we need to study the antique and the masters, not to imitate them; what we need, as I repeat, is to learn to see.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Our task is not to invent but to continue, and we have enough to do if, following the examples of the masters, we utilize those innumerable types which nature constantly offers to us, if we interpret them with wholehearted sincerity and ennoble them through that pure and firm style without which no work has beauty.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
What do those so-called artists mean when they preach the discovery of the "new"? Is there anything new? Everything has been done, everything has been discovered.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
He who is not willing to ask the contribution of any mind other than his own will soon find himself reduced to the most miserable of all imitations, which is to say the imitation of his own works.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
There are not two arts, there is only one: it is the one which has as its foundation the beautiful, which is eternal and natural. Those who seek elsewhere deceive themselves, and in the most fatal manner.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Drawing is the integrity of art.
Variant translation: Drawing is what keeps art honest. Or: drawing is the probity of art.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres