Paul Gauguin

“My Dear Mr. Pissarro; - I accept with pleasure the invitation that you and Mr. Degas were kind enough to extend to me. And naturally in that case I shall abide by all the rules that govern your Societe. Based on this decision, I also have the membership dues available. I will probably see you at Miss Latouche's and we will talk about this.”

“This Cézanne [a 'Still life with Compotier, Fruit and Glass', Cézanne made c. 1879-1882!!], that you ask me for is a pearl of exceptional quality and I already have refused three hundred francs for it; it is one of my most treasured possessions, and except in absolute necessity, I would give up my last shirt before the picture.”

“How do you see this tree? Is it really green? Use green, then, the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow, rather blue? Don't be afraid to paint it as blue as possible.”

“freely and madly; you will make progress.. .Above all, don't sweat over a painting; a great sentiment can be rendered immediately..”

“Don't copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction; as you dream amide nature, extrapolate art from it and concentrate on what you will create as a result.”

“A great sentiment can be rendered immediately. Dream on it and look for the simplest form in which you can express it.”

“Many people say that I don't know how to draw because I don't draw particular forms. When will they understand that execution, drawing and color (in other words, style) must be in harmony with the poem?”

“If we observe the totality of Camille Pissarro's works, we find there, despite the fluctuations, not only an extreme artistic will which never lies, but what is more, an essentially intuitive pure-bred art.. .He looked at everybody, you say! Why not? Everyone looked at him, too, but denied him. He was one of my masters and I do not deny him.”

“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge — and has to content oneself with dreaming.”

“I love Brittany; I find wildness and primitiveness there. When my wooden shoes ring on this granite, I hear the muffled, dull, and powerful tone which I try to achieve in painting.”

“Nature has mysterious infinities and imaginative power. It is always varying the productions it offers to us. The artist himself is one of nature's means.”

“<p>Life at Papeete soon became a burden.</p><p>It was Europe, the Europe which I had thought to shake off — and that under the aggravating circumstances of colonial snobbism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the point of caricature, of our customs, fashions, vices, and absurdities of civilization.</p><p>Was I to have made this far journey, only to find the very thing which I had fled?</p>”