Great Throughts Treasury

"Clever people master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties."

"Colours in vibration, peeling like silver bells and clanging like bronze bells, proclaiming happiness, passion and love, soul, blood and death."

"All important things in art have always originated from the deepest feeling about the mystery of Being."

"The art of an artist must be his own art. It is... always a continuous chain of little inventions, little technical discoveries of one's own, in one's relation to the tool, the material and the colors."

"Art is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks... Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time."

"Sometimes it seems to me that I am capable of absolutely nothing, but that nature through me can accomplish a great deal."

"What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work."

"The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks."