What distinguishes the artist from the dilettante? Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante looks only for pleasure in art.
Odilon RedonI have often, as an exercise and as a sustenance, painted before an object down to the smallest accidents of its visual appearance; but the day left me sad and with an unsatiated thirst. The next day I let the other source run, that of imagination, through the recollection of the forms and I was then reassured and appeased.
Odilon RedonWhile I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality... true art lies in a reality that is felt.
Odilon Redon