Quotes About Expression

All I ask in painting is a way of escaping from life.

Quanto a saber se é vendável ou invendável, este é um estribilho maçante, e não estou nem um pouco disposto a gastar minha energia nisto.

Bom – afinal há tantos pintores que de um modo ou de outro são doidos, que pouco a pouco me consolarei.

What am I in the eyes of most people?--a nobody, or an eccentric and disagreeable man--somebody who has no position in society and never will have, in short, the lowest of the low. Very well, even if that were true, then I should want to show by my work what there is in the heart of such an eccentric man, of such a nobody.

It's true I'm sitting here lonely, but whilst I am sitting here in silence, my work perhaps speaks to my friend, and whoever sees it will not suspect me of being heartless.

Não renuncio à ideia que tenho sobre o retrato, pois é uma boa coisa lutar por isto, e mostrar às pessoas que existe nelas algo além do que um fotógrafo com sua máquina pode revelar

In any case, whether people approve or do not approve of what I do and how I do it, I for my part know no other way than to wrestle so long with nature that she tells me her secret.

Eu tinha começado a assinar minhas telas, mas logo parei com isto, pareceu-me demasiada besteira.

Pois bem, este é o meu forte, fazer um homem toscamente numa única sessão.

Que afinal o artista é um homem que trabalha, e definitivamente não é o primeiro pateta a aparecer que o vencerá.

I should not be surprised if the impressionists soon find fault with my way of working, for it has been fertilized by the ideas of Delacroix rather than by theirs. Because, instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I use colour more arbitrarily so as to express myself forcibly.

Millet nos legou a síntese do camponês e hoje, sim, temos Lhermitte, claro, há ainda alguns outros, Meunier... mas aprendemos hoje mais geralmente a ver os camponeses? Não, quase ninguém sabe produzir um.

They are vast stretches of corn under troubles skies, and I did not need to go out of my way to try to express sadness and the extreme of loneliness...I almost think that these canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, the health and fortifying power that I see in the country.

exchanging pictures with other artists. In one word, with much energy, with a sincere personal feeling of colour in nature I would say an artist can get on here notwithstanding the many obstructions. And I intend remaining here still longer.

In short it is not as good as your painting yet; never mind, it will come; you must certainly continue your sonnets. There are so many people, especially among our comrades, who imagine that words are nothing - on the contrary, isn't it true that saying a thing well is as interesting and as difficult as painting it? There is the art of lanes and colours, but the art of words is there nonetheless, and will remain.

Cuando siento una necesidad de religión, salgo de noche y pinto las estrellas.

Now and then when I am writing, I automatically do a small drawing, such as I sent you lately. I did one this morning representing Elijah in the desert under an orange sky, with some hawthorns in the foreground. It is nothing special, but I see it all so clearly before me, and I think that at such moments I could speak about it enthusiastically - may it be given me to do so later on.

But always those same conventional eyes, noses, mouths - waxlike and smooth and cold. It cannot but always remain lifeless. And the painted portraits have a life of their own, coming straight from the painter's soul, which the machine cannot reach. The more one looks at photographs, the more one feels this, I think.

If you hear a voice within you say ,you cannot paint,' then by all means paint. And that voice will be silenced.

Thank you very much too for all the steps you have taken toward the exhibition of the Independents. On the whole I'm very glad that they've been put with the other impressionists.

Fortunately for me, I do not hanker after victory any more, and all that I seek in painting is a way to make life bearable.

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint. And that voice will be silenced.

Iar, dac? m-aÈ™ hot?rî s? m? las în voia pornirilor mele, nimic nu mi-ar fi mai uÈ™or decât s? m? uit cu dispreÈ› la tot ce-am f?cut È™i s?-mi calc tablourile în picioare, aÈ™a cum face père Cézanne.

But in the course of four months 250 fr. must be deducted for the payment of colours and rent; well, then my work is hampered and obstructed to such an extent that I am at my wit's end, and I prefer to tell the fellows: Sell the whole lot! But let me work!