Pierre Bonnard Quotations

Art will never be able to exist without nature.

You cannot possibly invent painting all by yourself.

The precision of naming takes away from the uniqueness of seeing.

I'm trying to do what I have never done - give the impression one has on entering a room: one sees everything and at the same time nothing.

Color does not add a pleasant quality to design - it reinforces it.

I should like to present myself to the young painters of the year 2000 with the wings of a butterfly.

Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, and express your pleasure strongly.

When you forget everything, there only remains yourself - and that is not enough.

A painting that is well composed is half finished.

It is still color, it is not yet light.

One always talks of surrendering to nature. There is also such a thing as surrendering to the picture.

The important thing is to remember what most impressed you and to put it on canvas as fast as possible.

You reason color more than you reason drawing... Color has a logic as severe as form.

Work on the accent, it will enliven the whole.

One must never let go before having managed to set down one's first impressions.

Art is not nature... There was a lot more to be got out of color.

One does not always sing out of happiness.

The expression on my face - who on earth would be interested in that? All that I have to say is to be found in my works. (On being photographed)

The painter's only solid ground is the palette and colors, but as soon as the colors achieve an illusion, they are no longer judged.

What I am after is the first impression - I want to show all one sees on first entering the room - what my eye takes in at first glance.

And after drawing comes composition. A well-composed painting is half done

You reason colour more than you reason drawing Colour has a logic as severe as form.

It seemed to me that it was possible to translate light, forms, and character using nothing but color, without recourse to values.

How many days have I spent alone with my cat... and when I say alone, I mean without a material being, for my cat is a mystical companion, a spirit.

Imagination is merely the exploitation of our memory.

Speaking, when you have something to say, is like looking. But who looks? If people could see properly, and see whole, they would all be painters. And it's because people have no idea how to look that they hardly ever understand.

The artist who paints the emotions creates an enclosed world... the picture... which, like a book, has the same interest no matter where it happens to be. Such an artist, we may imagine, spends a great deal of time doing nothing but looking, both around him and inside him.

The principal subject is the surface, which has its color, its laws over and above those of object.

It's not a matter of painting life, it's a matter of giving life to painting.

Painting has to get back to its original goal, examining the inner lives of human beings.

What attracted me was less art itself than the artist’s life and all that it meant for me: the idea of creativity and freedom of expression and action. I had been attracted to painting and drawing for a long time, but it was not an irresistible passion; what I wanted, at all costs, was to escape the monotony of life.

Drawing is feeling. Color is an act of reason.

I am just beginning to understand what it is to paint. A painter should have two lives, one in which to learn, and one in which to practice his art.