Paul Cezanne

Painting must give us the flavour of nature’s eternity.

Art has a harmony which parallels that of nature. The people who tell you that the artist is always inferior to nature are idiots! He is parallel to it.

I want to express myself clearly when I paint. In people who feign ignorance there is a kind of barbarism even more detestable than the academic kind: it’s no longer possible to be ignorant today.

Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet. That’s why color appears so entirely dramatic, to true painters.

Doubtless there are things in nature which have not yet been seen. If an artist discovers them, he opens the way for his successors.

For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.

Genius is the ability to renew one's emotions in daily experience.

Here, on the river's verge, I could be busy for months without changing my place, simply leaning a little more to right or left.

I am the primitive of the method I have invented.

I could paint for a hundred years, a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing.

I have nothing to hide in art. The initial force alone can bring anyone to the end he must attain.

I have sworn to die painting.

I lack the magnificent richness of color that animates nature.

I must be more sensible and realize that at my age, illusions are hardly permitted and they will always destroy me.