Paul Cezanne Art Quotations

The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself.

You say a new era in art is preparing; you sensed it coming; continue your studies without weakening. God will do the rest.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations.

I have nothing to hide in art. The initial force alone can bring anyone to the end he must attain.

I am more a friend of art than a producer of painting.

When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.

For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.

An art which isn't based on feeling isn't an art at all.

Don't be an art critic. Paint. There lies salvation.

Is art really the priesthood that demands the pure in heart who belong to it wholly?

My age and health will never allow me to realize the dream of art I've been pursuing all my life.

The strong experience of nature... is the necessary basis for all conception of art on which rests the grandeur and beauty of all future work.

Talks on art are almost useless. The work which goes to bring progress in one's own subject is sufficient compensation for the incomprehension of imbeciles.

Painting, like any art, comprises a technique, a workmanlike handling of material, but the accuracy of a tone and the fictitious combination of effects depend entirely on the choice made by the artist.

Drawing and color are not separate at all; in so far as you paint, you draw. The more color harmonizes, the more exact the drawing becomes. When the color achieves richness, the form attains its fullness also

Everything vanishes, falls apart, doesn't it? Nature is always the same but nothing in her that appears to us lasts. Our art must render the thrill of her permanence, along with her elements, the appearance of all her changes. It must give us a taste of her Eternity.

What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is a harmony parallel with nature.

Art first of all is optical. That's where the material of our art is: in what our eyes think.

If I were called upon to define briefly the word Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses preceive in nature, seen through the veil of the soul.

There is no such thing as an amateur artist as different from a professional artist. There is only good art and bad art.

One can do good things without being very much of a harmonist or a colourist. It is sufficient to have a sense of art - and this sense is doubtless the horror of the bourgeois.

Taste is the best judge. It is rare. Art only addresses itself to an excessively small number of individuals.

The Louvre is the book in which we learn to read. We must not, however, be satisfied with retaining the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors. Let us go forth to study beautiful nature, let us try to free our mids from them, let us strive to express ourselves according to our personal temperaments. Time and reflection, moreover, little by little modify our vision, and at last comprehension comes to us...

May I repeat what I told you here: treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, everything brought into proper perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed towards a central point. Lines parallel to the horizon give breadth... lines perpendicular to this horizon give depth. But nature for us men is more depth than surface, whence the need to introduce into our light vibrations, represented by the reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of blueness to give the feel of air.

An art which isn't based on feeling isn't an art at all... feeling is the principle, the beginning and the end; craft, objective, technique - all these are in the middle.

All my life I have worked to be able to earn my living, but I thought that one could do good painting without attracting attention to one's private life. Certainly, an artist wishes to raise himself intellectually as much as possible, but the man must remain obscure. The pleasure must be found in the work.

Chatter about art is almost always useless.

Design and color are not distinct and separate. As one paints, one draws. The more the colors harmonize, the more the design takes form. When color is at it's richest, form is at its fullest.

I have not tried to reproduce nature; I have represented it.

Art is a harmony parallel with nature.

With an apple I will astonish Paris.