Beautiful colors exist, though we do not realize it, and are glimpsed behind the veil that modesty has drawn over them.
Catalog
Paul Gaugin
It is so small a thing, the life of a man, and yet there is time to do great things, fragments of a common task.
I do not paint by copying nature. Everything I do springs from my wild imagination.
..solitude is not to be recommended to everyone, for you have to be strong in order to bear it and act alone.
Freely and madly; you will make progress... Above all, don't sweat over a painting; a great sentiment can be rendered immediately... Don't copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction; as you dream amide nature, extrapolate art from it and concentrate on what you will create as a result.
My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me.
In order to produce something new, you have to return to the original source, to the childhood of mankind.
Copying nature — what is that supposed to mean? Follow the masters! But why should one follow them? The only reason they are masters is that they didn't follow anybody!
In art, there are only two types of people: revolutionaries and plagiarists. And in the end, doesn't the revolutionary's work become official, once the State takes it over?
A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man.
I am leaving in order to have peace and quiet, to be rid of the influence of civilization. I want only to do simple, very simple art, and to be able to do that, I have to immerse myself in virgin nature, see no one but savages, live their life, with no other thought in mind but to render, the way a…
Nature has mysterious infinities and imaginative power. It is always varying the productions it offers to us. The artist himself is one of nature's means.
A great sentiment can be rendered immediately. Dream on it and look for the simplest form in which you can express it.
How do you see this tree? Is it really green? Use green, then, the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow, rather blue? Don't be afraid to paint it as blue as possible.
This Cézanne, that you ask me for is a pearl of exceptional quality and I already have refused three hundred francs for it; it is one of my most treasured possessions, and except in absolute necessity, I would give up my last shirt before the picture.