“In the works I paint [now] I can't see any guarantee that I shall make progress.... while better skilled people [artists] - even though their work does not seem so good at the moment - can move forward much more easily.”

— George Hendrik Breitner

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
Er is in wat ik maak geen waarborg, dat ik vooruit zal gaan.. ..terwijl beter geschoolde lui, ook al lijkt hun werk op het ogenblik niet zoo goed, veel eer, verder kunnen komen.
Breitner, quoted by Jan Veth, in Portretstudies en silhouetten, J. Veth; Amsterdam 1908, p. 204
Jan Veth is remembering Breitner's remark from an earlier walk they made together
1900 - 1923

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George Hendrik Breitner31

Dutch painter and photographer 1857–1923

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Kenneth Noland, p. 9
Conversation with Karen Wilkin' (1986-1988)

“The freedom is far more important than the money. The endgame is to be an extremely famous artist in lots of museums all around the world so lots of people can see my work for free. I know what I'm making, I know it's good. I will reserve the right to paint the [bombed] bus or anything that is shocking in life. If someone wants to come and shoot me because they find that offensive, they can. As an artist, if you can't take that freedom, you're a wanker.”

Stella Vine (1969) English artist

Smith, David. "Art? It's like the sex trade" http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2006/apr/23/art3, The Observer, (2006-04-23) <br class="br">On artistic freedom.

“I shall not find a painting more beautiful because the artist has painted a hawthorn in the foreground, though I know of nothing more beautiful than the hawthorn, for I wish to remain sincere and because I know that the beauty of a painting does not depend on the things represented in it. I shall not collect images of hawthorn. I do not venerate hawthorn, I go to see and smell it.”

Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French novelist, critic, and essayist

Preface (1910) to The Bible of Amiens by John Ruskin, translated by Proust (1904); from Marcel Proust: On Reading Ruskin, trans. Jean Autret and Philip J. Wolfe (Yale University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-300-04503-4, p. 57

“It's more like I'm having an experience than making a picture. So I've never had anyone around. I never have. People are different, but I have to really be with no interference. And it takes me hours. Painting a picture is a very short thing if it goes well, but the sitting and thinking... I usually go off on stories that have nothing to do with the painting, and sometimes I sit in the opposite room to where I work. If I can get a good hot story I can paint better, but sometimes I'm not thinking about the painting, I'm thinking about the subject. Lots of times I'll sit in another room and then I might just go in. It takes a lot of freedom. I'm working for two years on a subject now: ten paintings, and that can carry on for two years. I worked last summer and I started this summer and with just the simplest motif I just can't seem to do it. And everything slowed down.”

Cy Twombly (1928–2011) American painter

Source: 2000 - 2011, Cy Twombly, 2000', by David Sylvester (June 2000), pp. 179-180

“Even though I'm president of the United States, my power is not limitless. So I can't dive down there and plug the hole. I can't suck it up with a straw. All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hard-working smart people in place … to implement this thing.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Radio interview, Grand Isle, LA, June 11, 2010. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/06/obama-on-spill-i-cant-suck-it.html?hpid=news-col-blog <br class="br">2010, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April 2010)

“I can see it, but I can't make it move.”

Kerry Jackson

Radio From Hell (April 5, 2007)

“Every day I make more progress in technique: understanding of color, the material and the line. [I] can even give better theoretical explanations. And moreover, gradually I live more and more connected with the matter of the profession. What I mean is that my thinking and feeling are more directly, more fundamentally connected with painting itself. No longer so much thinking and feeling get lost.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

Steeds ga ik vooruit wat betreft tecniek: begrip van kleur, matérie, lijnen. Kan zelfs beter téoretisch uitleggingen geven. En wat meer is ik leef langs om meer méé met de materie van de stiel. Ik wil zeggen dat mijn denken en voelen directer, en wezenlijker in kontakt staat met schilderen. Er gaat niet meer zoveel denken en voelen verloren.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, 5 March 1950; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 118 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960

“Hugo [Claus], Now you should see my recent works. A drawing in ink, three pencil drawings and two sketches in oil-paint: a still-life and a landscape in the strongest colors you can imagine. I still have to work on the landscape, but I really think it will be the best of my paintings till now.... but the happiest thing is, I have acquired much more freedom.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Hugo [Claus], nu zoudt U eens moeten mijn laatste werk zien, een pentekening, drie potloodtekeningen en twee studies met olieverf: een stilleven en een landschap in de hevigste kleuren die Ge U kunt indenken. Aan dat landschap moet ik nog werken maar ik denk dat het mijn beste werk zal zijn, van mijn schilderwerk, en drie tekeningen vind ik mijn beste maar het gelukkigste is dat ik een veel grotere vrijheid heb verworven.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, 20-24 March 1948; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 50 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960

“Sometimes I wish I had more people to relate to and refer to and talk to, but there are very few artists whose work I want to see. It all makes for a kind of loneliness.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

1970s - 1980s, interview with Deborah Salomon in 'New York Times', 1989

“Now I'm sitting quietly at home again and I'm happy to be able to work undisturbed. I made a lot of sketches of life in Germany and it was very intriguing to see life there [in Berlin, a stay for three weeks]. I was also glad to see the old pictures of Rembrandt, Dürer, etc. again and to have the confirmation and encouragement they gave me. As for the moderns, I saw damned little that gripped me... Modern German painting has moved so far away from me and become unintelligible in areas in which my work had, and still has, an influence; but people like Klee, Kandinsky, etc. have moved much closer to me again, in fact I value the Bauhaus more and more. These people are working and developing. You can see that there is development. And they love their work, which is the main thing.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

Letter to Dr. Karl Hagemann, 26 March 1926 (short after a stay of 3 weeks in Berlin; as quoted in the biography-pdf http://www.kirchnermuseum.ch/data/media/downloads/Biography.pdf of the Kirchner museum, Davos <br class="br">1920's

“In the works I paint [now] I can't see any guarantee that I shall make progress.... while better skilled people [artists] - even though their work does not seem so good at the moment - can move forward much more easily.”

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George Hendrik Breitner31

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