I have played hell somewhat with the truthfulness of the colours.
In a painting I want to say something comforting.
Conscience is a man’s compass.
One should arrive at leading one’s conscience to a state of development so that it becomes the voice of a better and higher self, of which the ordinary self is a servant.
It is not only by one’s impulses that one achieves greatness, but also by patiently filing away the steel wall that separates what one feels from what one is capable of doing.
One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one’s own palette alone, and then nature is the result.
Both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets – neither of us have any.
Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.
When using colors to recreate a general harmony of tones in nature, one loses it by painfully exact imitation. One keeps it by recreating in an equivalent color range, and that may not be exactly, or far from exactly, like the model.
What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?
How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning.
We are surrounded by poetry on all sides...
Fortunately for me, I know well enough what I want, and am basically utterly indifferent to the criticism that I work to hurriedly. In answer to that, I have done some things even more hurriedly theses last few days.
But are not this struggle and even the mistakes one may make better, and do they not develop us more, than if we kept systematically away from emotions?
If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? He studies a single blade of grass.
It is the language of nature to which one has to listen.
We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words.
If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?
The victory one would gain after a whole life of work and effort is better than one that is gained sooner.
Ah! Portraiture, portraiture with the thought, the soul of the model in it, that is what I think must come.