Francisco Goya Quotations

In art, there is no need for color; I see only light and shade. Give me a crayon, and I will paint your portrait.

Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.

Painting (like poetry) chooses from universals what is most apposite. It brings together, in a single imaginary being, circumstances and characteristics which occur in nature in many different persons.

I am beginning to have more powerful enemies and more envious ones, too.

I have just returned from Arenas and feel very tired. His Excellency loaded me with a thousand honours; I have painted his portrait and that of his wife and boy and girl with unexpected success, for other artists had been there previously and not been successful.

I have now established myself in a most enviable manner. Those who require something of me must seek me out - I remain apart. I work for no one unless he is a high-ranking personality or a friend.

I will give a proof to demonstrate with facts that there are no rules in painting and that oppression or servile obligation of making all study or follow the same path is a great impediment for the young who profess this very difficult art.

With all my work, I have not more, with my shares in the bank and the Academy, than twelve or thirteen thousand reales a year, and with all this, I am as contented as the happiest man on earth.

Monsters are the result of the sleep of reason.

But where do they find these lines in nature? I can only see luminous or obscure masses, planes that advance or planes that recede, reliefs or background. My eye never catches lines or details.

Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters

I have had three masters, Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt.

The dream of reason produces monsters

Painting, like poetry, selects in the universe whatever she deems most appropriate to her ends. She assembles in a single fantastic personage, circumstances and features which nature distributes among many individuals. From this combination, ingeniously composed, results that happy imitation by virtue of which the artist earns the title of inventor and not of servile copyist.

The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.

I see only forms that are lit up and forms that are not. There is only light and shadow.

First be a magnificent artist and then you can do whatever, but the art must be first.

The act of painting is about one heart telling another heart where he found salvation.