Paul Cezanne Quotes

A person with normal eyesight would have nothing to know in the way of 'Impressionism' unless he were in a blinding light or in the dusk or dark.

Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations.

Painting is by nature a luminous language.

Nature engenders the science of painting.

Try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, 'Here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow,' and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives you your own impression of the scene before you.

Not what man knows but what man feels, concerns art. All else is science.

Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint? It might be things, thoughts, a memory, sensations, which have nothing to do directly with painting itself. They can come from anything and anywhere.

I often avoid using the terms 'figuration' and 'abstraction' because I've always tried to have it both ways. I want the experience of looking at one of my paintings to be similar to the process of making the painting - you go from the big picture to something very intense and detailed, and then back again.

Color is a matter of taste and of sensitivity.

Monet was like a conductor. He painted with quite a straight arm and used bold strokes.

I don't work from drawings. I don't make sketches and drawings and color sketches into a final painting.

I paint what I see, not what a camera would see.

What is art but a way of seeing?

A painting of a person can be descriptive, but for me it's about all the things that make up a picture - the feelings, the brushstrokes - more than describing somebody. People latch on to the personalities when they talk about my work and forget the other parts.

Most of the power of painting comes through the manipulation of space... but I don't understand that.

So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject. But it's hard, because everybody has style. You can't help it.

If Monsieur X spent an eternity studying treatises on optics, he would never paint 'La Grande Jatte.'

Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature.

I love Monet - I've nicknamed him King Blob. When you go up to the painting, it's a series of blobs - amazing.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Illustrating is more about communicating specific ideas to a reader. Painting is more like pure science, more about the act of painting.

Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature.

The thrill of a photo-realist painter is if you get really close to the painting, it looks just like a photograph. Whereas in my case, if you get close to my paintings, they totally fall apart - so I'm about as far from a photo-realist as it gets.

... Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial you have to use not a shadow but a sign, not the limitation but the image. The image is a new and different reality, and of course it does not convey an impression of some object, but the mind of the subject; and that is something else again.

My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea, even switch me to different subject matter. So I start out with my mind as free from image as the silver film on which I am to record, and I hope as sensitive.