Constantin Brancusi

"To create like a God, rule like a king and work like a slave."

Brancusi was a Romanian artist who mythically walked to France to study sculpting there. Upon arrival he was disappointed with the work of Rodin. He felt that Rodin was too keen on the external reality of figures, and that artists should be concerned with internal beauty and reality, what he called essence

"Real is not external, but real is the essence."

You can see this in one of his very popular and well known sculptures, Bird in Space.