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

Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.

I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.

A new painting is a unique event, a birth, which enriches the universe as it is grasped by the human mind, by bringing a new form into it.

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

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.

Art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue.