Simple colours can affect the intimate feelings with all the more force because they are simple.

Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality. With more involvement and regularity, I learned to push each study in a certain direction. Little by little the notion that painting is a means of expression asserted itself, and that one can express the same thing in several ways. Exactitude is not truth, Delacroix liked to say.

He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.

Creation is the artist's true function; where there is no creation there is no art.

A rapid rendering of a landscape represents only one moment of its existence. I prefer, by insisting upon its essential character, to risk losing charm in order to gain greater stability.

I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.

A work should contain its total meaning within itself and should impress it on the spectator before he even knows the subject.