If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.
More of me comes out when I improvise.
No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination.
Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.
So many people say painting is fun. I don’t find it fun at all. It’s hard work for me.
Well, I’ve always been interested in approaching a big city in a train, and I can’t exactly describe the sensations, but they’re entirely human and perhaps have nothing to do with aesthetics.
In general it can be said that a nation’s art is greatest when it most reflects the character of its people.
There is a sort of elation about sunlight on the upper part of a house.
My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature.
I believe that the great painters with their intellect as master have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions.
There will be, I think, an attempt to grasp again the surprise and accidents of nature and a more intimate and sympathetic study of its moods, together with a renewed wonder and humility on the part of such as are still capable of these basic reactions.
What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.
I find linseed oil and white lead the most satisfactory mediums.
The only quality that endures in art is a personal vision of the world. Methods are transient: personality is enduring.
When I don’t feel in the mood for painting I go to the movies for a week or more. I go on a regular movie binge!
I think that zinc white has a property of scaling and cracking.
If the picture needs varnishing later, I allow a restorer to do that, if there’s any restoring necessary.