I don’t know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I’m some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.
Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.
Truly, I’m not joking when I thank my lucky stars for the awful operation I had, since it has made me young again and philosophical which means that I don’t want to fritter away the new lease on life I’ve been given.
I shan’t get free of my emotion by copying the tree faithfully, or by drawing its leaves one by one in the common language, but only after identifying myself with it.
The effort to see things without distortion takes something like courage and this courage is essential to the artist, who has to look at everything as though he saw it for the first time.
Fit the parts together, one into the other, and build your figure like a carpenter builds a house. Everything must be constructed, composed of parts that make a whole...
Each work of art is a collection of signs invented during the picture’s execution to suit the needs of their position. Taken out of the composition for which they were created, these signs have no further use.
Did not the artists of the great age of Japanese art change names many times during their careers? I like that; they wanted to safeguard their freedom.
Put a colour upon a canvas – it not only colours with that colour the part of the canvas to which the colour has been applied, but it also colours the surrounding space with the complementary.
It is through the human figure that I best succeed in expressing the nearly religious feeling that I have towards life.
The residuum of another’s expression can never be related to one’s own feeling.
Never ruin a good painting with the truth.
With greater completeness and abstraction, I have attained a form filtered to its essentials.
From the first shock of the contemplation of a face depends the principal sensation which guides me throughout the entire execution of a portrait.
The model for me is a touchstone, it is a door which I must break open in order to reach the garden in which I am alone and feel good, even the model exists only for what use I can make of it.
Cezanne, you see, is a sort of God of painting.
The sign is determined at the moment I use it and for the object of which it must form a part. For this reason I cannot determine in advance signs which never change, and which would be like writing: that would paralyze the freedom of my invention.
The things that are acquired consciously permit us to express ourselves unconsciously with a certain richness.
I have simply wished to assert the reasoned and independent feeling of my own individuality within a total knowledge of tradition.
What matters most to me? To work with my model until I have it enough in me to be able to improvise, to let my hand run free...
A colourist makes his presence known even in a simple charcoal drawing.