The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor's hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone

Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.

The stone unhewn and cold Becomes a living mould, The more the marble wastes The more the statue grows.

The greatest artist does not have any concept
Which a single piece of marble does not itself contain
Within its excess, though only
A hand that obeys the intellect can discover it.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.