I cannot copy nature in a servile way; I am forced to interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture. From the relationship I have found in all the tones there must result a living harmony of colors, a harmony analogous to that of a musical composition.
I have to create an object which resembles the tree. The sign for a tree, and not the sign that other artists may have found for the tree.
When a painting is finished, it’s like a new born child, and the artist himself must have time for understanding. How then do you expect an amateur to understand that which the artist dos not yet comprehend.
Color was not given to us in order that we imitate Nature. It was given to us so that we can express our emotions.
All that is not useful in a picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety; for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements.
A work should contain its total meaning within itself and should impress it on the spectator before he even knows the subject.
If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open.
A certain blue enters your soul.
I dream of an art of balance, of quietness, something analogous to a good armchair.
Hatred, rancor, and the spirit of vengeance are useless baggage to the artist. His road is difficult enough for him to cleanse his soul of everything which could make it more so.
Precision is not reality.
Starting to paint, I felt gloriously free, quiet, and alone.
The energy within you is stronger than ever for being held back, compressed, and said No to...
My curves are not crazy.
Color, even more than drawing, is a means of liberation.
It is with color that you render light, though you must also feel this light, have it within yourself.
My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory, it is based on observation, on feeling, on the experience of my sensibility.
In art, truth and reality begin when one no longer understands what one is doing or what one knows, and when there remains an energy that is all the stronger for being constrained, controlled and compressed.
A young woman has young claws, well sharpened. If she has character, that is. And if she hasn’t so much the worse for you.
I’ve been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.