Maurice de Vlaminck: Quotes about painting

“The thought of becoming a painter never as much as occurred to me. I would have laughed out loud if someone had suggested that I choose painting as a career. To be a painter is not a business, no more than to be an artist, lover, racer, dreamer, or prizefighter. It is a gift of Nature, a gift..”

Maurice de Vlaminck

Quote of De Vlaminck; as cited in Vlaminck, Klaus G. Perls, The Hyperion Press, New York 1941, p. 51
To support his family of four, De Vlaminck had to find other means by which to earn a living, and ended up taking several other jobs, including working as a billiards players, a writer, a general worker, and even a cyclist
Quotes undated

Lovers , Business , Nature , Painting

“It was only in the evenings that I played the violin [c. 1999-1901, to earn his money for living]. During the day I was free to spend my time as I wished. With a few colours in a box, a canvas and a cheap easel under my arm, I would make my way to the Banks of the Seine... I painted to restore my peace of mind, to calm my desires and, above all, to purify myself a little... Make a career of painting. How I would have laughed if someone had talked to me about that! To be a painter is not a profession, no more than being an anarchist or a lover, a race-track rider..”

Maurice de Vlaminck

Source: Quotes dated, Dangerous Corner', 1929, p. 66

Money , Peace , Way , Lovers

“.. a revolt against an established order in painting, a revolt against an established order in society, a same spirit of provocation..”

Maurice de Vlaminck

Quote of De Vlaminck before 1915; as cited in Derain et Vlaminck: 1900-1915, by Jacqueline Munck and Maïthé Vallès-Bled; catalogue of Lodeve Museum, 2001, p. 23 - ISBN 10: 8820214903 / ISBN 13: 9788820214906
Quotes dated

Painting

“[ Picasso is guilty of] having dragged French painting into the most dismal 'impasse' and of having led it into in describable confusion. From 1900 – 1930, he led it towards negation, impotence and death. All alone with himself Picasso is impotence made man. Nature havinf denied him a real character, all his intelligence and malice have been employed to fabricate a personality.”

Maurice de Vlaminck

Quote from Vlaminck's text 'Portraits', c. 1940-42; as cited in 'Dangerous Corner', Maurice de Vlaminck; transl. after 'Tournant Dangereux, 1929' by Michael Ross]; Abelard-Schuman Limited, New York, 1966, p. 25
Quotes dated

Death , Intelligence , Nature , Painting

“All this countryside [along the Seine] was calm and peaceful. The strongest emotions I have experienced on the high roads or on the hill tops whence I could see down into the valleys on tot he roofs of houses which I felt I could reach out and touch with my hand.. And then I was tempted to begin painting [c. 1893 - 17 years old]... I composed instinctively and awkwardly. I applied colors with only one idea which justified everything: to express what I felt. I painted hesitantly and exclusively for myself and no one else. It seemed to me that water, sky, clouds and trees understood the happiness they gave me.”

Maurice de Vlaminck

Source: Quotes dated, Dangerous Corner', 1929, p. 46

Peace , Color , Idea , Tree

“My father was a violinist, my mother a pianist. I was born into a world of music... The practicing of my father's pupils accompanied every thought and action of my childish life.... Then when I was thirty [c. 1906], my career as musician was brought to an end by Vollard [art-dealer in Paris] who bought all the pictures I possessed, pictures which I had painted over several years with unbounded enthusiasm during such hours of freedom as I was able to spare between [music]-lessons to my pupils.”

Maurice de Vlaminck

Source: Quotes dated, Dangerous Corner', 1929, p. 27

Life , World , Art , Music

“[with painting] directly tube against canvas, one soon becomes too slick... I regretfully realized that my composition was reduced to no more than a series of coloured rhythms, harmonious, discordant, monotonous and that, from simplification to simplification, I was falling into the trap of decoration. I no longer got to the bottom of things: I no longer cut through to their heart. The decorative spirit was leading me to forget painting.”

Maurice de Vlaminck

Vlaminck himself had become disillusioned with Fauvism, c. 1907-08
Source: Quotes dated, Dangerous Corner', 1929, p. 15

Heart , Painting , Forgetting

“I wanted to burn down the 'École de Beaux Arts' with my cobalts and vermilions and I wanted to express my feelings with my brushes without troubling what painting was like before me... Life and me, me and life.”

Maurice de Vlaminck

Quote of De Vlaminck; as cited in Picasso, Matisse and Modernism in Paris 1900-1910, Sue Roe; Penguin Press, 2015; quoted in 'Becoming an Artist' on Widewalls https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/maurice-de-vlaminck/
Quotes undated

Life , Art , Feeling , Painting