Great Throughts Treasury

"Get to the heart of what is before you and continue to express yourself as logically as possible."

"He [Manet] hits of the tone? but his work lacks unity and temperament too. I was very pleased with myself when I discovered that sunlight could not be reproduced; it had to be represented by something else? by color."

"He unfolds, as a painter, that which has not yet been said; he translates it into absolute terms of painting ? something other than reality."

"Fruits ... like having their portrait painted. They seem to sit there and ask your forgiveness for fading. Their thought is given off with their perfumes. They come with all their scents, they speak of the fields they have left, the rain which has nourished them, the daybreaks they have seen."

"Here on the edge of the river, the motifs are very plentiful, the same subject seen from a different angle gives a subject for study of the highest interest and so varied that I think I could be occupied for months without changing my place, simply bending a little more to the right or left."

"Here you are, put this somewhere, on your work table. You must always have this before your eyes... It?s a new order of painting. Our Renaissance starts here...There?s a pictorial truth in things. This rose and this white lead us to it by a path hitherto unknown to our sensibility."

"Here, on the river's verge, I could be busy for months without changing my place, simply leaning a little more to right or left."

"His is the greatest palette of France and no one beneath our skies possessed to a greater extent than he both the serene and the pathetic, the vibration of color. We all paint through him."

"I advance all of my canvas at one time."

"I allow no one to touch me."

"I am a consciousness. The landscape thinks itself through me."

"I am a pupil of Pissarro."

"God knows how the Old Masters got through those acres of work ... I exhaust myself, work myself to death trying to cover fifty centimeters of canvas."

"He who has no taste for the absolute merely a quiet mediocrity"

"I am beginning to consider myself stronger than all those around me, and you know that the good opinion I have of myself has only been reached after mature consideration."

"I am more a friend of art than a producer of painting."

"I am not altogether displeased with the shirt-front."

"I am old and ill, and I have sworn to die painting."

"I am progressing very slowly, for nature reveals herself to me in very complex forms; and the progress needed is incessant."

"I am still searching for the expression of those confused sensations that we bring with us at birth."

"I am sturdy. My soul is strong. Happiness lies in work."

"I ask you to pray for me, for once age has overtaken us, we find consolation only in religion."

"I cannot attain the intensity that is unfolded before my senses. I have not the magnificent richness of coloring that animates nature."

"I could paint for a hundred years, a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."

"I feel exploitation everywhere. I'm waiting to make a decision."

"I feel the gentleman would like to get his hands on my study. Still, I feel almost inclined to try something with him."

"I have made some progress. Why so late and with such difficulty? Is art really a priesthood that demands the pure in heart who must belong to it entirely?"

"I have not tried to reproduce nature: I have represented it."

"I have nothing to hide in art. The initial force alone can bring anyone to the end he must attain."

"I have sworn to die painting."

"I have to keep working, not to arrive at finish, which arouses the admiration of fools.... I must seek completion only for the pleasure of being truer and more knowing."

"I lack the magnificent richness of color that animates nature."

"I must be more sensible and realize that at my age, illusions are hardly permitted and they will always destroy me."

"I owe you the truth in painting and I will tell it to you."

"I paint as if I were Rothschild."

"I pursue success by work. I despise all living painters but Monet and Renoir, and I want to succeed."

"I see the dark side of things and so feel more and more forced to rely on others' guidance."

"I should have wished to possess the intellectual equilibrium that characterizes you and permits you to achieve without fail the desired end... Chance has not favored me with an equal self-assurance, it is the only regret I have about things of this earth."

"I still work with difficulty, but I seem to get along. That is the important thing to me. Sensations form the foundation of my work, and they are imperishable, I think. Moreover, I am getting rid of that devil who, as you know, used to stand behind me and forced me at will to ?imitate?; he?s not even dangerous any more. [One week before his death]"

"I thought that by leaving Aix I should leave behind the boredom that pursues me. Actually I have done nothing but change my abode and the boredom has followed me."

"I try to render perspective through color alone."

"I try to render perspective through color alone. One must see one's model correctly and experience it in the right way, and furthermore, express oneself with distinction and strength."

"I must carry on. I must then realize from nature sketches; canvases, if I did any, would be only constructions after nature."

"I want to die painting."

"I want to make Impressionism something solid and durable."

"I wished to copy nature. I could not. But I was satisfied when I discovered the sun, for instance, could not be reproduced, but only represented by something else."

"I work obstinately, and once in a while I catch a glimpse of the Promised Land. Am I to be like the great leader of the Hebrews, or will I really attain unto it? ? I have a large studio in the country. I can work better there than in the city. I have made some progress. Oh, why so late and so painful? Must art indeed be a priesthood, demanding that the faithful be bound to it body and soul?"

"I?ve ripped it to pieces; your portrait, you know. I tried to work on it this morning, but it went from bad to worse, so I destroyed it"

"If I delay in visiting you, the cause lies in the inextricable situation from which I'm burning to escape."

"If I have left something unsaid, they will say it."