André Derain: Quotes about painting

André Derain was French painter and engraver. Explore interesting quotes on painting.
André Derain: 14   quotes 1   like

“What, after all, is a pretty woman? It's a mere subjective impression – what you yourself think of her. That's what I paint, another kind of beauty of my own.”

André Derain

Source: The Wild Men of Paris', 1910, p. 406

Beauty , Thinking , Painting

“There is only one kind of painting: landscape. It is the most difficult. It has also, I believe, the most simple kind of composition. Because no one can stop us from imagining the world in the way that pleases us most.”

André Derain

Quote from Derain's letter to Maurice de Vlaminck, c. 1906; as cited in 'Report: André Derain's 'Trees by a Lake', by Cleo Nisse and Francesca Whitlum-Cooper http://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Report-Derain-by-F-Whitlum-Cooper-and-Cleo-Nisse.compressed.pdf, p. 5

World , Way , Imagination , Painting

“If I paint a girl in the sunlight, it's the sunlight I am painting, not the real girl; and even fort hat I should have the sunlight on my palette. I don't care for an accidental effect of light and shade, a thing of 'mere charm.”

André Derain

Source: The Wild Men of Paris', 1910, p. 407

Girl , Light , Painting

“The Japanese see things that way. They don't paint sunlight, they don't cast shadows that perplex one and falsify the true shape of things. The Egyptian figures have simplicity, dignity, directness, unity; they express motion almost as if by a conventional formula, like writing itself, so direct it is. So I seek a logical method of rendering my idea.”

André Derain

Source: The Wild Men of Paris', 1910, p. 407

Way , Idea , Painting