Paul Gauguin Quotes
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One's state of mind is three-quarters of what counts, so it has to be carefully nurtured if you want to do something great and lasting.
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Poor artist! You gave away part of your soul when you painted the picture which you are now trying to dispose of.
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Oh yes! he loved yellow, this good Vincent, this painter from Holland - those glimmers of sunlight rekindled his soul, that abhorred the fog, that needed the warmth.
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The work of a man is the explanation of the man.
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In art one is concerned with the condition of the spirit for three quarters of the time; one must therefore care for oneself if he wishes to make something great and lasting.
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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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You may dream freely when you listen to music as well as when you look at painting. When you read a book you are the slave of the author's mind.
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I plunged eagerly and passionately into the wilderness, as if in the hope of thus penetrating into the very heart of this Nature, powerful and maternal, there to blend with her living elements.
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In painting one must search rather for suggestion than for description, as is done in music.
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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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Do not copy nature. Art is an abstraction. Rather, bring your art forth by dreaming in front of her and think more of creation.
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In order to produce something new, you have to return to the original source, to the childhood of mankind.
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My God! How terrible these money questions are for an artist!
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It is better to paint from memory, for thus your work will be your own.
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I shut my eyes in order to see.
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I am entering into the truth, into nature.
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I am a great artist and I know it, it is because I am that I have been able to endure so much suffering.
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Under the continual contact with the pebbles my feet have become hardened and used to the ground. My body, almost constantly nude, no longer suffers from the sun. Civilization is falling from me little by little. I am beginning to think simply, to feel only very little hatred for my neighbor - rather, to love him.
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How to re-light the fire the very ashes of which are scattered?
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Painting is the most beautiful of all arts. In it, all sensations are condensed, at its aspect everyone may create romance at the will of his imagination, and at a glance have his soul invaded by the most profound memories, no efforts of memory, everything summed up in one moment. Complete art which sums up all the others and completes them.
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Perhaps I have no talent, but all vanity aside - I do not believe that anyone makes an artistic attempt, no matter how small, without having a little - or there are many fools.
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On an instrument you start from one tone. In painting you start from several.
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Silence! I am learning to know the silence of a Tahitian night.
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I have tried to establish the right to dare everything.