"You would hardly believe, my dear fellow, how difficult it is to clap a solitary figure on a canvas and to concentrate the entire interest on that one solitary figure without it ceasing to be lively and full.. .Your portrait (1880) is an outstandingly sincere work. I remember as though it were yesterday the rapid, summary fashion in which I dealt with the glove of the ungloved hand. And when you said to me, at that very moment, 'Please not another touch', I felt we were so perfectly attuned that I couldn't resist the impulse to embrace you. Ah! Heaven send that no one takes it into his head later on to stick that portrait into a public collection!"
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Original Language: English
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Quote of Manet in his letter to Antonin Proust 1880, as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, pp. 123-124
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Manet
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Édouard Manet
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