“I have seen big painting here. When I had looked at all the paintings by all the masters I had known I could not help saying to myself all the time, it's very pretty but it's not all yet. It ought to be better, but now I have seen what I always thought ought to have been done and what did not seem to me impossible. O what satisfaction it gave me to see the good Spanish work so good so strong so reasonable so free from every affectation. It stands out like nature itself.”

— Thomas Eakins

Letter from Madrid to Benjamin Eakins (1869-12-02).

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Thomas Eakins 19

American painter 1844–1916

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“"I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me."
After a pause full of intense thought on my part, I asked: "But if one hasn't always emotion. What then?"
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“By good rights I ought not to have so much
Put on me, but there seems no other way.
Len says one steady pull more ought to do it.
He says the best way out is always through.
And I agree to that, or in so far
As that I can see no way out but through —
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Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

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1910s

“It all began with my painting a picture of an American flag. Using this design took care of a great deal for me because I didn't have to design it. So I want on to similar things like the targets things the mind already knows. That gave me room to work on other levels. For instance, I've always thought of a painting as a surface; painting it in one color made this very clear... A picture ought to be looked at the same way you look at a radiator.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

His heart belong to DADA, Time 73, 4 May, 1959: 58; as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 82
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“I will confess to you that never for one moment have I had any doubt that I had to do what I did, and when I look back I don't see what more I could have done, having regard to the state of public opinion and the sharpness of party feeling. That is a tremendous solace to me. Few men can have known such a reversal of fortune in so short a time.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Archbishop of Canterbury (14 October 1940), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 455.
Post-Prime Ministerial

“As far as transience is concerned... You see the whole story in those shoes, that's why I paint them so accurate. The physical attitude; crooked legs, a lump. Those shoes were talking to me, and then I thought: I can see that you were so and so big, but did you also had a wife? Children? What were you doing? And what really mattered to me is my own place between them. Between those stories, that mystery. That pitch-black background [in Jopie's paintings, till c.1979-80] - I had found it. A cry for attention. Those pants, that shirt, that background, that was: here I am. But then it become mannerism. So I carried on realistically but avoiding the black background at all costs. It is as Rutger Kopland says: Whoever found it did not look well. Now I want to paint people like this, like they are made of colored mud. Color spiritualizes.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Wat de vergankelijkheid betreft.. .Je ziet het hele verhaal in die schoenen, daarom schilder ik ze zo scherp. De lichamelijke houding; kromme poten, een knobbel. Die schoenen praatten tegen me, en dan dacht ik: ik kan zien dat je zo en zo groot was, maar had je ook een vrouw? Kinderen? Wat deed je? En waar het me in wezen dan om ging is mijn plekkie daartussen. Tussen die verhalen, dat mysterie. Die pikzwarte achtergrond [in zijn schilderijen, tot c. 1979-80]; ik had het gevonden. Een schreeuw om aandacht. Die broek, dat hemd, die achtergrond, dat was: hier ben ik. Maar dan word je een maniërist. Dus ik ben realistisch doorgegaan, maar koste wat het kost die zwarte achtergrond vermijdend. Het is zoals nl:Rutger Kopland zegt: Wie het gevonden heeft, heeft niet goed gezocht. Nu wil ik de mensen zo schilderen, als zijn ze van gekleurde modder. De kleur die vergeestelijkt.
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“Night and day I've been most intensely thinking about my painting, and I have been more or less satisfied with everything I've done. I'm slacking a little now, not working as much, and no longer so satisfied. But all in all, I still have a loftier and happier perspective on my art than I did in Worpswede. But it does demand a very, very great deal of me – working and sleeping in the same room with my paintings is a delight... When I wake up in the middle of the night, I jump out of bed and look at my work. And in the morning it's the first thing I see..”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

In a letter from Paris, 15 May 1906 to Otto Modersohn in Worpswede; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 204
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“Oh, I loved Mr. Moffet! He was WONDERFUL! He’d given me hope! I felt fearless once again, and I could clearly see it had always been fear that had kept me dammed up all these years. Fear of sin, fear of hell, fear of what people might think of me, fear of … of … I didn’t quite know how to say or even think all these thoughts I was having, and yet… it was like I was now so excited with all these thoughts racing around inside my brain that I was on fire. Maybe I wasn’t really stupid after all. Maybe I’d just been misled all these years from the very beginning. OH, A FIRE FOR WANTING TO LEARN ALL I COULD LEARN WAS NOW BURNING INSIDE ME!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

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“Formerly it frequently happened to me that when questioned regarding a picture I simply did not know what it represented. I had not seen the subject, so to say. Now I have also included the content so that I know most of the time what is represented. But this only supports my experience that what matters in the ultimate end is the abstract meaning of harmonization”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

note from a letter, 1903
Quote from a letter (1903), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 443
1903 - 1910

“All you have been, and seen, and done, and thought,
Not You but I, have seen and been and wrought:
I was the Sin that from Myself rebell'd:
I the Remorse that tow'rd Myself compell'd…”

Attar of Nishapur book The Conference of the Birds

The Conference of the Birds (1177)

“I rang up this publisher and they asked me what I was doing at the time. I told them I was a house-painter, so first of all they had me come round and paint the place. Only later did they consider my work and Banished Misfortune was published.”

Dermot Healy (1947–2014) Irish writer

John O'Mahony (2000). Let the west of the world go by http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/jun/03/fiction.johnomahony, The Guardian (3 June 2000)

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Thomas Eakins 19

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