In painting, as in the other arts, there's not a single process, no matter how insignificant, which can be reasonably made into a formula. You come to nature with your theories, and she knocks them all flat.
About 1883 something like a break occurred in my work. I had reached the end of 'impressionism,' and I had come to realize that I did not know how to paint or draw.
I've known painters who never did any good work because instead of painting their models they seduced them.
I have a predilection for painting that lends joyousness to a wall.
The purpose of painting is to decorate the walls. Therefore it has to be as rich as possible
I've never let one day go by without painting, or at least without drawing.
You haven't time to think about the composition. In working directly from nature, the painter ends up by simply aiming at an effect, and not composing the picture at all; and he soon becomes monotonous.
I just keep painting till I feel like pinching. Then I know it's right.
I had wrung impressionism dry and I finally came to the conclusion that I know neither how to paint nor how to draw.
People will keep on taking them for theorists, when all they wanted was to paint in gay, bright colours, like the old masters.
With a limited palette, the older painters could do just as well as today what they did was sounder.
My concern has always been to paint nudes as if they were some splendid fruit.
There are some things in painting which cannot be explained, and that something is essential.
It took me twenty years to discover painting: twenty years looking at nature, and above all, going to the Louvre.
You don't talk about paintings, you look at them.
I would never have taken up painting if women did not have breasts.
A painter who has the feel of breasts and buttocks is saved.
Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits.
When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished.
I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it.
Paint with joy - with the same joy that you would make love to a woman.