Painter Quotes

“It would be very curious to record by means of photographs, not the stage of the picture, but its metamorphoses. Perhaps one would perceive the path taken by the mind in order to put its dreams into a concrete form. But what is really very curious is to observe that fundamentally the picture does not change, that despite appearances the initial vision remains almost intact.”

“We might adapt for the artist the joke about there being nothing more dangerous than instruments of war in the hands of generals. In the same way, there is nothing more dangerous than justice in the hands of judges, and a paint brush in the hands of a painter! Just think of the danger to society! But today we haven't the heart to expel the painters and poets because we no longer admit to ourselves that there is any danger in keeping them in our midst.”

“No, painting is not interior decoration. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy.”

“To arrive at abstraction, it is always necessary to begin with a concrete reality.”

“You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.”

“The path to youth takes a lifetime.”

“It takes a long time to become young.”

“I am only a public entertainer who understands his time.”

“In the end there is only Matisse.”

“What I achieve the first day can be perfectly valid, but it is not satisfying. If I can go that far spontaneously, then I must shed that result as an old skin and inquire further into the unknown, or at least the not-yet-known-to-myself.”

“I do not evolve, I am.”

“When they say that I am too old to make a thing, I try to make it immediately.”

“It's always necessary to seek for perfection. Obviously, for us, this word no longer has the same meaning. To me, it means: from one canvas to the next, always go further, further.”

“If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse... but surely you will see the wildness!”

“We have learned nothing.”

“I'm always doing things I can't do. That's how I get to do them.”

“The only pictorial matter that is of interest to me is the matter and sentiments brought about by the work itself.”

“The first half of life is learning to be an adult-the second half is learning to be a child.”

“To make oneself hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved.”

“I don't develop; I am.”

“Age only matters when one is aging. Now that I have arrived at a great age, I might as well be twenty.”

“By amusing myself with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous... I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time.”

“I paint the way someone bites his fingernails; for me, painting is a bad habit because I don't know nor can I do anything else.”

“I see for others... in order to put on canvas the sudden apparitions which come to me.”

“To model an object is to possess it.”