I couldn't portray a women in all her natural loveliness.. I haven't the skill. No one has. I must, therefore, create a new sort of beauty, the beauty that appears to me in terms of volume of line, of mass, of weight, and through that beauty interpret my subjective impression. Nature is mere a pretext for decorative composition, plus sentiment. It suggests emotion, and I translate that emotion into art. I want to express the absolute, not merely the factitious woman.

One must not imitate what one wants to create.

A painting without something disturbing in it – what's that?.

Truth exists; only lies are invented.

In art, progress lies not in an extension, but in a knowledge of limitations.

Art is made to trouble but science reassures.

It is the unforeseeable that creates the event.