While I know that the beautiful, the spiritual and the sublime are suspect today, I have begun to stop resisting the constant urge to deny that beauty has a valid right to exist in contemporary art.

What I so like about Poussin and Cezanne is their sense of organization. Ilike the way in which they develop space and shape in architecturalcontinuity - the rhythm across their paintings. When I paint a landscape, Iget the greatest pleasure out of composing it. As I paint, I try to work outa visual sonata form or a fugue, with realistic images.

My idea of a perfect surrealist painting is one in which every detail is perfectly realistic, yet filled with a surrealistic, dreamlike mood. And the viewer himself can't understand why that mood exists, because there are no dripping watches or grotesque shapes as reference points. That is what I'm after: that mood which is apart from everyday life, the type of mood that one experiences at very special moments.

While I know that the beautiful, the spiritual and the sublime are suspect today, I have begun to stop resisting the constant urge to deny that beauty has a valid right to exist in contemporary art.