Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

The chief function of color should be to serve expression as well as possible.

If my story were ever to be written truthfully from start to finish, it would amaze everyone.

Expression for me does not reside in passions glowing in a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive; the place occupied by my figures, the empty space around them, the proportions, everything has its share.

One must, of course, have one's entire experience behind one and not have lost the freshness of instinct.

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.

Colours have their own distinctive beauty that you have to preserve, just as in music you try to preserve sounds. It is a question of organization, of finding the arrangement that will keep the beauty and freshness of the colour