Claude Monet quotes:

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  • Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

  • For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.

  • No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.

  • I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

  • I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

  • Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

  • It would be asking too much to want to sell only to connoisseurs - that way starvation lies.

  • I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain.

  • My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece

  • Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. To such an extent indeed that one day, finding myself at the deathbed of a woman who had been and still was very dear to me, I caught myself in the act of focusing on her temples and automatically analyzing the succession of appropriately graded colors which death was imposing on her motionless face.

  • I'm knocked out, I've never felt so physically and mentally exhausted, I'm quite stupid with it and long only for bed; but I am happy...

  • Gardening was something I learned in my youth when I was unhappy. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

  • By the single example of this painter devoted to his art with such independence, my destiny as a painter opened out to me.

  • My life has been nothing but a failure.

  • Impressionism is only direct sensation. All great painters were less or more impressionists. It is mainly a question of instinct, and much simpler than [John Singer] Sargent thinks.

  • Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.

  • It's enough to drive you crazy, trying to depict the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience.

  • One day Boudin said to me, 'Learn to draw well and appreciate the sea, the light, the blue sky.' I took his advice.

  • Take clear water with grass waving at the bottom. It's wonderful to look at, but to try to paint it is enough to make one insane.

  • Paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see; not the object isolated as in a test tube, but the object enveloped in sunlight and atmosphere, with the blue dome of Heaven reflected in the shadows.

  • I'm never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel.

  • the more I live, the more I regret how little i know

  • A good impression is lost so quickly...

  • It took me time to understand my water lilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them.

  • It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.

  • I do what I can to convey what I experience before nature and most often, in order to succeed in conveying what I feel, I totally forget the most elementary rules of painting, if they exist that is.

  • Pictures aren't made out of doctrines. Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green, and red...But peppermint or chocolate, they are still confections.

  • As for myself, I met with as much success as I ever could have wanted. In other words, I was enthusiastically run-down by every critic of the period.

  • What is it that's taken hold of me, for me to carry on like this in relentless pursuit of something beyond my powers?

  • Manet wanted one day to paint my wife and children. Renoir was there. He took a canvas and began painting them, too. After a while, Manet took me aside and whispered, 'You're on very good terms with Renoir and take an interest in his future - do advise him to give up painting! You can see for yourself that it's not his metier at all.

  • Canvases between 8 centimetres and 1 metre are priced around 25,000 francs. In the past I used to sell them from between 50 to 100 francs at the most. I have to say... that I feel somewhat embarrassed at this admission.

  • I'm in a foul mood as I'm making stupid mistakes... This morning I lost beyond repair a painting with which I had been happy, having done about twenty sessions on it; it had to be thoroughly scraped away... what a rage I was in!

  • Critic asks: 'And what, sir, is the subject matter of that painting?' - 'The subject matter, my dear good fellow, is the light.

  • One is too taken up with all that one sees and hears in Paris, however strong one is, and what I do here [in Etretat] will at least have the merit of being unlike anyone else, at least I believe so, because it will simply be the expression of what I, and only I, have felt.

  • I am very depressed and deeply disgusted with painting. It is really a continual torture.

  • Despite my extremely modest prices, dealers and art lovers are turning their backs on me. It is very depressing to see the lack of interest shown in an art object which has no market value.

  • I'm working hard with more determination than ever. My success at the Salon led to my selling several paintings and since your absence I have made 800 francs; I hope, when I have contracts with more dealers, it will be better still.

  • People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love.

  • To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.

  • The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.

  • It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.

  • I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible.

  • When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, house, a field....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 your own naive impression of the scene before you.

  • I must have flowers, always, and always.

  • All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it.

  • Light is the most important person in the picture.

  • I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

  • What I need most of all is color, always, always.

  • The real subject of every painting is light.

  • It is better to have done something than to have been someone.

  • Everything changes, even stone.

  • Listening only to my instincts, I discovered superb things.

  • My only desire is an intimate infusion with nature, and the only fate I wish is to have worked and lived in harmony with her laws.

  • My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions.

  • I didn't become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one.

  • I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint...

  • The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.

  • I had so much fire in me and so many plans...

  • It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water.

  • I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.

  • My heart is forever in Giverny.

  • I haven't many years left ahead of me and I must devote all my time to painting, in the hope of achieving something worthwhile in the end, something if possible that will satisfy me.

  • I'm enjoying the most perfect tranquillity, free from all worries, and in consequence would like to stay this way forever, in a peaceful corner of the countryside like this.

  • The point is to know how to use the colours, the choice of which is, when all's said and done, a matter of habit.

  • If only the weather would improve, there'd be hope of some work, but every day brings rain.

  • I let a good many mistakes show through when fixing my sensations. It will always be the same and this is what makes me despair.

  • Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of blue and pink: it's enchanting, it's delicious.

  • My aim is to give you only the things with which I am completely satisfied, even if it means asking you a little more [time] for them... for if I were to do otherwise I'd turn into a mere painting machine and you would be landed with a pile of incomplete work which would put off the most enthusiastic of art collectors...

  • All of a sudden I had the revelation of how enchanting my pond was.

  • You'll understand, I'm sure that I'm chasing the merest sliver of color. It's my own fault. I want to grasp the intangible. It's terrible how the light runs out. Color, any color, lasts a second, sometimes 3 or 4 minutes at most...

  • When I work I forget all the rest.

  • Zaandam has enough to paint for a lifetime.

  • Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.

  • When it is dark, it seems to me as if I were dying, and I can't think any more.

  • Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers.

  • I haven't yet managed to capture the colour of this landscape; there are moments when I'm appalled at the colours I'm having to use, I'm afraid what I'm doing is just dreadful and yet I really am understating it; the light is simply terrifying.

  • I've done what I could as a painter and that seems to me to be sufficient. I don't want to be compared to the great masters of the past, and my painting is open to criticism; that's enough.

  • I'm continuing to work hard, not without periods of discouragement, but my strength comes back again.

  • I see less and less... I need to avoid lateral light, which darkens my colors. Nevertheless, I always paint at the times of day most propitious for me, as long as my paint tubes and brushes are not mixed up... I will paint almost blind, as Beethoven composed completely deaf.

  • These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.

  • I can only draw what I see.

  • I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It's true that fretting never did any good.

  • While adding the finishing touches to a painting might appear insignificant, it is much harder to do than one might suppose...

  • I'm in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint.

  • I still don't know where I am going to sleep tomorrow.

  • Apart from painting and gardening, I'm not good at anything.

  • I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics.

  • I still have a lot of pleasure doing them, but as time goes by I come to appreciate more clearly which paintings are good and which should be discarded.

  • Perhaps it's true that I'm very hard on myself, but that's better than exhibiting mediocre work... too few were satisfactory enough to trouble the public with.

  • I'm very happy, very delighted. I'm setting to like a fighting cockerel, for I'm surrounded here by all that I love.

  • I would advise young artists to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly.

  • I'm getting so slow at my work it makes me despair, but... I'm increasingly obsessed by the need to render what I experience, and I'm praying that I'll have a few more good years left to me...

  • I know well enough in advance that you'll find my paintings perfect. I know that if they are exhibited they'll be a great success, but I couldn't be more indifferent to it since I know they are bad, I'm certain of it.

  • The creditors are proving impossible to deal with and short of a sudden appearance on the scene of wealthy art patrons, we are going to be turned out of this dear little house where I led a simple life and was able to work so well. I do not know what will become of us...

  • It seems to me that when I see nature I see it ready-made, completely written - but then, try to do it!

  • What could be said about me...a man to whom only his painting matters? And of course his garden and his flowers as well.

  • For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at any moment.

  • Thanks to my work everything's going well; it's a great consolation.

  • My eyes were finally opened and I understood nature. I learned at the same time to love it.

  • The older I become the more I realize of that I have to work very hard to reproduce what I search: the instantaneous. The influence of the atmosphere on the things and the light scattered throughout.

  • One's better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one's own. In fact it's a terrible business and the task is a hard one.

  • Most people think I paint fast. I paint very slowly.

  • Work is nearly always a torture. If I could find something else I would be much happier, because I could use this other interest as a form of relaxation. Now I cannot relax.

  • Nature won't be summoned to order and won't be kept waiting. It must be caught, well caught.

  • I can no longer work outside because of the intensity of the light.

  • I've said it before and can only repeat that I owe everything to Boudin and I attribute my success to him. I came to be fascinated by his studies, the products of what I call instantaneity.

  • I work at my garden all the time and with love. What I need most are flowers, always. My heart is forever in Giverny.

  • You might perhaps like to see the few canvases I was able to save from the bailiffs and the rest, since I thought you might be so good as to help me a little, as I am in quite a desperate state, and the worst is that I can no longer even work.

  • I would love to do orange and lemon trees silhouetted against the blue sea, but I cannot find them the way I want them.

  • One day I am satisfied, the next day I find it all bad; still I hope that some day I will find some of them good.

  • I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found - the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.

  • I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home.

  • I am enslaved to my work, always wanting the impossible, and never, I believe, have I been less favoured by the endlessly changeable weather.

  • For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject.

  • The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.

  • No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet.

  • I insist upon 'doing it alone'... I have always worked better alone and from my own impressions.

  • I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way in that particular spot; and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even.

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