“If I had not become a painter,
I would surely have become a clown..
.. because I make people laugh..
.. Faces deformed
by suffering, humour or work.
Often crazy. They then became imaginary,
when I adorned them with movements
free colours depending on the head. The
colour too become clown-like”

—  Karel Appel

AF, 73; p. 161
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If I had not become a painter, I would surely have become a clown.. .. because I make people laugh.. .. Faces deform…" by Karel Appel?
Karel Appel photo
Karel Appel 58
Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet 1921–2006

Related quotes

Werner Herzog photo

“As you see [filmmaking] makes me into a clown. And that happens to everyone — just look at Orson Welles or look at even people like Truffaut. They have become clowns.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)

Sina Mesdag-van Houten photo

“Without my husband I would never have become a painter, and without me he had probably not become a painter.”

Sina Mesdag-van Houten (1834–1909) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek

(original Dutch: citaat van Sientje Mesdag van Houten, in het Nederlands:) Zonder mijn man was ik nooit schilderes geworden, en zonder mij was hij waarschijnlijk geen schilder geworden.

Quote in the magazine 'Wereldkroniek', 21 April 1906; as cited on website Panorama Mesdag http://www.panorama-mesdag.nl/ontdek/mesdag/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5cO-hZzH3QIVDYmyCh0duwn1EAAYAiAAEgKqIPD_BwE

George Hendrik Breitner photo

“Do you know what I really need to make a well-finished painting? 2 years at Gérome or somebody like him, working in the studio.... because that is the only way to become a good painter. That whole business.. then a small watercolour than a little painting and finally when I have earned so much that I could study, I have become too old and too miserable.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Weet U wat ik nodig heb om een goed afgewerkt schilderij te maken? 2 jaar bij Gérome of zoo iemand op 't atelier te werken.. ..want dat is de enige manier om een goed schilder te worden. Dat gewurm, dan een aquarelletje dan een schilderijtje en eindelijk als ik daardoor zo veel verdiend heb dat ik zou kunnen studeeren ben ik te oud en te beroerd geworden.
In his letter to A.P. van Stolk, nr. 51, c. 1884; RKD-Archive, The Hague; as cited in master-thesis Van Gogh en Breitner in Den Haag, Helewise Berger, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, p. 29
Breitner responds to accusations from his Maecenas that he refused to learn from well-known Dutch painters how to finish his paintings well. In 1884 already Breitner started in the studio of Cormon in Paris
before 1890

Marino Marini photo
Terry Pratchett photo
David Lynch photo
Lawrence Durrell photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

As quoted in Life with Picasso, by François Gilot, 1964, p. 60
1940s

Related topics