I learned early about the misery and dangers of life, and about the afterlife, about the external punishment which awaited the children of sin in Hell.

I was walking along a road one evening – on one side lay the city, and below me was the fjord. The sun went down – the clouds were stained red, as if with blood. I felt as though the whole of nature was screaming – it seemed as though I could hear a scream. I painted that picture, painting the clouds like real blood. The colours screamed.

No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.

It would be quite amusing to preach a bit to all those people who for many years now have been looking at our paintings and either laughed or shook their heads reproachfully. They do not believe that these impressions, these instant sensations, could contain even the smallest grain of sanity. If a tree is red or blue, or a face is blue or green, they are sure that is insanity.

I do not believe in the art which is not the compulsive result of man's urge to open his heart

I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw.

Some colors reconcile themselves to one another, others just clash.