Art Quotes

“I think of painting as a place where everything can come together.”

“I want there to be a human presence without having to depict it in full.”

“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”

“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.”

“I paint like a bird sings.”

“It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way.”

“My only merit lies in having painted directly in front of nature, seeking to render my impressions before the most fleeting effects.”

“The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.”

“I am surrounded by a small group of young s who will be very happy get to know you. Besides, they are real painters... I find myself very well fixed here. I am drawing figures at hard. And at the Academy, there are only landscapists. They begin to perceive that it's a good thing.”

“Among Troyon's paintings there are two huge ones; Return to the Farm is marvelous with its beautiful stormy sky. There is much windy motion in the clouds, and the cows and dogs are very good. In Going to the Market you see the mist at sunrise. It's superb and, most of all, very luminous. The wide space in View from Surennes is amazing. You feel you are really in the countryside.”

“'..learn to draw: that's where most of you [Troyon's pupils] are falling down today.. ..draw with all your might; you can never learn too much. However, don’t neglect painting, go to the country from time to time and make studies and above all develop them..' [Monet is quoting in his letter Troyon, a friend of Boudin in Paris]”

“By way of news, I can tell you that Couture, that bad-tempered fellow, has completely given up painting. It's no great pity; in this exhibition, he had some really bad paintings.”

“It is beautiful here [in , Normandy], my friend; every day I discover even more beautiful things. It is intoxicating me, and I want to paint it all - my head is bursting.. ..I want to fight, scratch it off, start again, because I start to see and understand. I seems to me as if I can see nature and I can catch it all.. ..it is by observation and reflection that I discover how. That is what we are working on, continuously..”

“It seems to me, when I see nature, that I see it ready made, completely written — but then, try to do it! All this proves that one must think of nothing but them [impressions]; it is by dint of observation and reflection that one makes discoveries.”

“There at the moment in .. .Boudin and Jongkind are here; we get on marvelously. There's lots to be learned and nature begins to grow beautiful.. .I shall tell you I'm sending a flower picture to the exhibition at Rouen; there are very beautiful flowers at present.”

“One is too taken up with all that one sees and hears in Paris, however strong one is, and what I do here will at least have the merit of being unlike anyone else, at least I believe so, because it will simply be the expression of what I, and only I have felt. The further I get, the more I regret how little I know, that's what hinders me the most.. .I don't think I will spend much time in Paris now, a month at the very most, each year.”

“In Paris one is too preoccupied by what one sees and what one hears, however strong one is; what I am doing here has, I think, the merit of not resembling anyone, because it is simply the expression of what I myself have experienced.”

“is particularly remarkable and there is enough here to paint for a life-time.”

“There are the most amusing things everywhere [in The Netherlands]. Houses of every colour, hundreds of windmills and enchanting boats, extremely friendly Dutchmen who almost all speak French... .I have not had time to visit the museums, I wish to work first of all and I'll treat myself to that later.”

“A group of painters assembled in my home, read with pleasure the article you published in 'L'Avenir national'. We are all very pleased to see you defend ideas which are also ours, and we hope that, as you say, 'L'Avenir national' will kindly lend us its support when the Society we are in the process of forming is finally established.”

“I've got it.. .the Saint Lazare[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Monet_Gare_Saint_Lazare_1877.jpg] [train-station in Paris, then]. I'll show it just as the trains are starting, with smoke from the engines so thick you can hardly see a thing. It's a fascinating sight, a real dream. I'll get them [the station office] to delay the train for Rouen for half an hour. The light will be better then.”

“The sea is superb, but the cliffs don't match up to those at Fecamp. Here I'll be certain to do more boats.”

“I won't be here long, I am working as hard as I can, as I told you [in a letter] yesterday, I am very happy to be here Etretat, Normandy] and I hope to come up with something good, in any case I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home.”

“Once settled, I hope to produce masterpieces, because I like the countryside very much.”

“Art's about life and it can't really be about anything else.”

“I just want to find out where the boundaries are.”

“The idea of being a painter is better than being an artist or a sculptor.”

“The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.”

“Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer, and clearer still.”

“Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look.”