Claude Monet Quotes
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One day Eugène Boudin said to me, '..appreciate the sea, the light, the blue sky'. I took his advice and together we went on long outings during which I painted constantly from nature. This was how I came to understand nature and learned to love it passionately.
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I am weary, having worked without a break all day; how beautiful it is here, to be sure, but how difficult to paint! I can see what I want to do quite clearly but I'm not there yet. It's so clear and pure in its pink and blues that the slightest misjudged stroke looks like a smudge of dirt.. .I have fourteen canvases underway.
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Techniques vary, art stays the same; it is a transposition of nature at once forceful and sensitive.
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Despite my exhaustion I have a devil of a time getting to sleep because of the rats above my bed and a pig who lives beneath my room.
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In Paris one is too preoccupied by what one sees and what one hears, however strong one is; what I am doing here has, I think, the merit of not resembling anyone, because it is simply the expression of what I myself have experienced.
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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.
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I've got it.. .the Saint Lazare1 train-station in Paris, then. I'll show it just as the trains are starting, with smoke from the engines so thick you can hardly see a thing. It's a fascinating sight, a real dream. I'll get them the station office to delay the train for Rouen for half an hour. The light will be better then.
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It is difficult to stop in time because one gets carried away. But I have that strength; it is the only strength I have.
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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.
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I'm quite content: although what I'm doing is far from being as I should like, I am complemented often enough all the same.
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I never draw except with brush and paint.
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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.
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I insist upon 'doing it alone'... I have always worked better alone and from my own impressions.
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..but what a pity that I did not come here in Venice when I was younger and more adventurous.
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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.
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Zaandam has enough to paint for a lifetime.
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I get madder and madder on giving back what I feel.
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It is only too easy to catch people's attention by doing something worse than anyone else has dared to do it before.
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Once settled, I hope to produce masterpieces, because I like the countryside very much.
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Light is the most important person in the picture.
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Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue: it's enchanting, it's delicious, and I hope it will please you.
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Impressionism is only direct sensation. All great painters were less or more impressionists. It is mainly a question of instinct, and much simpler than Sargent thinks. But he went on to agree that impressionists had noted how strong
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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.
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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.