Claude Monet
I haven't yet managed to capture the colour of this landscape; there are moments when I'm appalled at the colours I'm having to use, I'm afraid what I'm doing is just dreadful and yet I really am understating it; the light is simply terrifying.Collection: Light
I can only draw what I see.Collection: Draws
Ninety per cent of the theory of Impressionist painting is in . . . Ruskin's Elements.Collection: Elements
Impressionism is only direct sensation. All great painters were less or more impressionists. It is mainly a question of instinct, and much simpler than [John Singer] Sargent thinks.Collection: Thinking
I say that whoever claims to have finished a canvas is terribly arrogant.Collection: Finishing
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.Collection: Merit
When I look at nature I feel as if I'll be able to paint it all, note it all down, and then you might as well forget it once you're working.Collection: Nature
The point is to know how to use the colours, the choice of which is, when all's said and done, a matter of habit.Collection: Choices
I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain.Collection: Ideas
Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.Collection: Sleep
Zaandam has enough to paint for a lifetime.Collection: Lifetime
I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It's true that fretting never did any good.Collection: People
If the world really looks like that I will paint no more!Collection: Looks
I let a good many mistakes show through when fixing my sensations. It will always be the same and this is what makes me despair.Collection: Mistake
The effect of sincerity is to give one's work the character of a protest. The painter, being concerned only with conveying his impression, simply seeks to be himself and no one else.Collection: Character
Manet wanted one day to paint my wife and children. Renoir was there. He took a canvas and began painting them, too. After a while, Manet took me aside and whispered, 'You're on very good terms with Renoir and take an interest in his future - do advise him to give up painting! You can see for yourself that it's not his metier at all.Collection: Children
I still don't know where I am going to sleep tomorrow.Collection: Sleep
I'm knocked out, I've never felt so physically and mentally exhausted, I'm quite stupid with it and long only for bed; but I am happy.Collection: Stupid
I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics.Collection: Opinion
I'm working hard with more determination than ever. My success at the Salon led to my selling several paintings and since your absence I have made 800 francs; I hope, when I have contracts with more dealers, it will be better still.Collection: Determination
If only the weather would improve, there'd be hope of some work, but every day brings rain.Collection: Rain
It's enough to drive you crazy, trying to depict the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience.Collection: Crazy
I've only myself to blame for it, my impotence most of all and my weakness. If I do any good work now it will be only by chance.Collection: Weakness
What can be said about a man who is interested in nothing but his painting? It's a pity if a man can only interest himself in one thing. But I can't do any thing else. I have only one interest.Collection: Men
Pictures aren't made out of doctrines. Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green, and red...But peppermint or chocolate, they are still confections.Collection: Garden
I've done what I could as a painter and that seems to me to be sufficient. I don't want to be compared to the great masters of the past, and my painting is open to criticism; that's enough.Collection: Past
I've said it before and can only repeat that I owe everything to Boudin and I attribute my success to him. I came to be fascinated by his studies, the products of what I call instantaneity.Collection: Study
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.Collection: Depressing
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.Collection: Sleep
I'm getting so slow at my work it makes me despair, but... I'm increasingly obsessed by the need to render what I experience, and I'm praying that I'll have a few more good years left to me.Collection: Years
While adding the finishing touches to a painting might appear insignificant, it is much harder to do than one might suppose.Collection: Finishing
One is too taken up with all that one sees and hears in Paris, however strong one is, and what I do here [in Etretat] will at least have the merit of being unlike anyone else, at least I believe so, because it will simply be the expression of what I, and only I, have felt.Collection: Strong
I never draw except with brush and paint.Collection: Drawing
I insist upon 'doing it alone'... I have always worked better alone and from my own impressions.Collection: Impression
No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet.Collection: Poet
I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home.Collection: Home
The Thames was all gold. God it was beautiful, so fine that I began working a frenzy, following the sun and its reflections on the water.Collection: Beautiful
I've been working so hard that I'm exhausted... I feel I won't be able to do without a few weeks' rest, so I'm going off to see the sea.Collection: Sea
It seems to me that when I see nature I see it ready-made, completely written - but then, try to do it!Collection: Trying
I would love to do orange and lemon trees silhouetted against the blue sea, but I cannot find them the way I want them.Collection: Orange
For almost two months now I've been struggling away with no result.Collection: Struggle
The creditors are proving impossible to deal with and short of a sudden appearance on the scene of wealthy art patrons, we are going to be turned out of this dear little house where I led a simple life and was able to work so well. I do not know what will become of us.Collection: Art
One day I am satisfied, the next day I find it all bad; still I hope that some day I will find some of them good.Collection: Next Day
Think of me getting up before 6, I'm at work by 7 and I continue until 6.30 in the evening, standing up all the time, nine canvases. It's murderous.Collection: Thinking
Thanks to my work everything's going well; it's a great consolation.Collection: Gratitude
I am enslaved to my work, always wanting the impossible, and never, I believe, have I been less favoured by the endlessly changeable weather.Collection: Believe
What is it that's taken hold of me, for me to carry on like this in relentless pursuit of something beyond my powers?Collection: Taken
I'm very happy, very delighted. I'm setting to like a fighting cockerel, for I'm surrounded here by all that I love.Collection: Fighting
It is difficult to stop in time because one gets carried away. But I have that strength; it is the only strength I have.Collection: Finishing