20 quotes
A time will come when people will think I am a myth, or rather something the newspapers have made up.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
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.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
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.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
In art, there are only two types of people: revolutionaries and plagiarists. And in the end, doesn't the revolutionary's work become official, once the State takes it over?
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
In order to produce something new, you have to return to the original source, to the childhood of mankind.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
..color being enigmatic in itself.. ..then to be logical we cannot use it any other way than enigmatically..
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
I do not paint by copying nature. Everything I do springs from my wild imagination.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
A great sentiment can be rendered immediately. Dream on it and look for the simplest form in which you can express it.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
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.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
I must confess that I too am a woman and that I am always prepared to applaud a woman who is more daring than I, and is equal to a man in fighting for freedom of behavior.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
At the age of ten, twenty, a hundred, very young, a little older, and very old, an artist is always an artist. Isn't he better at some times, some moments, than at others? Never impeccable, since he is a living, human being?
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
Copying nature — what is that supposed to mean? Follow the masters! But why should one follow them? The only reason they are masters is that they didn't follow anybody!
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
No one wants my painting because it is different from other people's — peculiar, crazy public that demands the greatest possible degree of originality on the painter's part and yet won't accept him unless his work resembles that of the others!
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
..so before I died I wanted to paint a large canvas that I had worked out in my head, and all month long I worked [on Tahiti] day and night at fever pitch.. .It's all done without a model.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
Your Nordic blue eyes looked attentively at the paintings hanging on the walls. I felt stirrings of rebellion: a whole clash between your civilization and my barbarism. Civilization from which you suffer. Barbarism which for me is a rejuvenation.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
freely and madly; you will make progress.. .Above all, don't sweat over a painting; a great sentiment can be rendered immediately..
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
The critic asks me: 'So you are a Symbolist? I mean well and I would like to learn; why don't you explain Symbolism to me'.. I answer.. .'Well, my paintings probably speak Hebrew, which you do not understand, so there is no point in continuing the conversation.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)
At an exhibition in London, one sagacious critic wrote: 'Monsieur Degas seems a good pupil of Nittis!' Doesn't this reflect that mania which men of letters have for squabbling in court over who had a given idea first? And the mania spreads to painters who take great care of their originality.
The Writings of a Savage (1996)