“It is always my endeavour however in making a picture that it should be without a companion in the world. At least such should be a painters ambition.”

“I regretted I was not the head of a clan; however, though not possessed of such an hereditary advantage, I would always endeavour to make my tenants follow me.”

“The world doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”

“writers without books, poets without verses, painters without pictures p198”

“It should be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the cause of their villainies.”

“And however one's mind may be elevated, and kept us to what is excellent, by the works of the Great Masters — still Nature is the fountain's head, the source from whence all originally must spring — and should an artist continue his practice without referring to nature he must soon form a manner, & be reduced to the same deplorable situation as the French painter mentioned by Sir J. Reynolds, who told him that he had long ceased to look at nature for she only put him out.For the last two years I have been running after pictures, and seeking the truth at second hand. I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the same elevation of mind — but have neither endeavoured to make my performances look as if really executed by other men….. There is room enough for a natural painter. The great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something beyond the truth.I am come to a determination to make no idle visits this summer, nor to give up my time to common-place people. I shall return to Bergholt, where I shall make some laborious studies from nature — and I shall endeavour to get a pure and unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may employ me.”

“I am very happy. My only ambition is that the quality of my work should go ahead.”

“Analogously to Arnulf Rainer′s ‘overpaintings’, and extending thse with my own actionistic resources, the artist′s head should be in the picture, should become one with the picture, and disappear in it.”

“I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.”

“I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it.”