What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure.

Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.

I never retouch a sketch: I take a canvas the same size, as I may change the composition somewhat. But I always strive to give the same feeling, while carrying it on further.

The use of expressive colors is felt to be one of the basic elements of the modern mentality, an historical necessity, beyond choice.

The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.

The splitting up of color [as Impressionists did] brought the splitting up of form and contour . . . Everything is reduced to a mere sensation of the retina, but one which destroys all tranquility of surface and contour. Objects are differentiated only by the luminosity that is given them.

To arrive is to be in prison.