Paul Gauguin Quotes
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There are two sorts of beauty; one is the result of instinct, the other of study. A combination of the two, with the resulting modifications, brings with it a very complicated richness, which the art critic ought to try to discover.
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Civilization is paralysis.
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A nude by Degas is chaste. But his women wash in tubs!
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Soon I'll be old and I've done precious little in this world for lack of time. I am always afraid I'll become senile before I've finished what I've undertaken.
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By the combination of lines and colors, under the pretext of some motif taken from nature, I create symphonies and harmonies that represent nothing absolutely real in the ordinary sense of the word but are intended to give rise to thoughts as music does.
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Lacking many of the essential implements, it irritated me to be reduced to impotence in the face of artistic projects to which I had passionately given myself.
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Life is hardly more than a fraction of a second. Such a little time to prepare oneself for eternity!
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What still concerns me the most is: am I on the right track, am I making progress, am I making mistakes in art?
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Life is merely a fraction of a second. An infinitely small amount of time to fulfill our desires, our dreams, our passions.
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Whatever may happen the sun will rise tomorrow as it rose to-day, beneficent and serene.
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In Europe men and women have intercourse because they love each other. In the South Seas they love each other because they have had intercourse. Who is right?
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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?
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I was aware that on my skill as a painter would depend the physical and moral possession of the model.
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Literary poetry in a painter is something special, and is neither illustration nor the translation of writing by form.
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In painting one must search rather for suggestion than for description, as is done in music.
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Oh mysterious world... I have become better for having understood and having loved thy human soul - a flower which has ceased to bloom and whose fragrance no one henceforth will breathe.
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Happiness and work rose up together with the sun, radiant like it.
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We never really know what stupidity is until we have experimented on ourselves.
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A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.
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It is well for young men to have a model, but let them draw the curtain over it while they are painting.
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It was so simple to paint things as I saw them; to put without special calculation a red close to a blue.
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The critics can say stupid things and we can enjoy them, if we have the legitimate feeling of superiority - the satisfaction of a duty accomplished.
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My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me.
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A bit of advice, don't copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction; as you dream amid nature, extrapolate art from it, and concentrate on what you will create as a result.