Paul Gauguin Quotes in Lust for Life (1956)

Paul Gauguin: With all your talk of emotion, all I see when I look at your work is just that you paint too fast!

Vincent Van Gogh: You look too fast!

Paul Gauguin: I like 'em fat and vicious and not too smart. Nothing spiritual either. To have to say 'I love you' would break my teeth. I don't want to be loved.

Vincent Van Gogh: Please don't go. You don't know how alone feels!

Paul Gauguin: I know about loneliness! Only I don't whine about it!

Paul Gauguin: If it's one thing I despise, it's emotionalism in painting.

Paul Gauguin: [Addressing a small group of his artist acquaintances] The fact is, my dear friends, that you are not painters. You are, uh, tattoo artists. You are chemists with little pots of paint. You cover canvases with colored fleas. You are so busy imitating each other's tricks, you've forgotten what painting is about. You all make me sick.

Paul Gauguin: I have some advice of my own: you'd best mind your own fucking business.

Paul Gauguin: Painting, Vincent, is a whore. You can make beautiful love to it. You can titillate and suck and nurture every erogenous area. You can bring it to orgasm, hour after hours. And if you're lucky, really lucky, you'll get a little kiss in return.

Paul Gauguin: You see, Vincent, the work of a man is the explanation of the man. Your work shows me a man who lacks confidence,a man who is afraid of the world.

Paul Gauguin: Colors come from tubes.

Paul Gauguin: The essence of a work lies precisely in what is not expressed. It has no material being.

Vincent van Gogh: Why is it that everyone who disagrees with you is an ignorant fool?

Paul Gauguin: I don't know. I've often asked myself the same question.

Paul Gauguin: I like big women. Big all over. It's like my paintings. I like a big area to work on.