I’m knocked out, I’ve never felt so physically and mentally exhausted, I’m quite stupid with it and long only for bed; but I am happy...
I still have a lot of pleasure doing them, but as time goes by I come to appreciate more clearly which paintings are good and which should be discarded.
One day I am satisfied, the next day I find it all bad; still I hope that some day I will find some of them good.
I still don’t know where I am going to sleep tomorrow.
I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found – the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.
My eyes were finally opened and I understood nature. I learned at the same time to love it.
Most people think I paint fast. I paint very slowly.
The older I become the more I realize of that I have to work very hard to reproduce what I search: the instantaneous. The influence of the atmosphere on the things and the light scattered throughout.
One’s better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one’s own. In fact it’s a terrible business and the task is a hard one.
Work is nearly always a torture. If I could find something else I would be much happier, because I could use this other interest as a form of relaxation. Now I cannot relax.
I’m in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint.
I am very depressed and deeply disgusted with painting. It is really a continual torture.
My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions.
If only the weather would improve, there’d be hope of some work, but every day brings rain.
I would love to do orange and lemon trees silhouetted against the blue sea, but I cannot find them the way I want them.
Apart from painting and gardening, I’m not good at anything.
I am enslaved to my work, always wanting the impossible, and never, I believe, have I been less favoured by the endlessly changeable weather.
For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject.
What is it that’s taken hold of me, for me to carry on like this in relentless pursuit of something beyond my powers?
I have made tremendous efforts to work in a darker register and express the sinister and tragic quality of the place, given my natural tendency to work in light and pale tones.