Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness.

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.

The viewers must come to understand the sacredness of painting, so they will remove their hats as if they were in church.

It was always my intention that The Frieze should be housed in a room which would provide a suitable architectural frame for it.

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.

Without anxiety and illness I would have been like a ship without a rudder.

I don’t believe in an art that is not born out of man’s need to open his heart.