Nocturne Valley I

“I studied the art of the ancients and that of the moderns using no systematized approach and without preconceived ideas. I no more wanted to imitate the former than I sought to copy the latter… I wanted to draw from the entire body of tradition a rational, independent sense of my own individuality. To know in order to create—this was my purpose.” – Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)