Quotes from Paul Cezanne

I paint as if I were Rothschild.

There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.

I want to die painting.

Painting is damned difficult - you always think you've got it, but you haven't.

With an apple I will astonish Paris.

People think how a sugar basin has no physiognomy, no soul. But it changes every day.

To be sure an artist wishes to raise his standard intellectually as much as possible, but the man must remain in obscurity. Pleasure must be found in the studying.

Don't be an art critic. Paint. There lies salvation.

Art is a harmony parallel with nature.

Treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, everything in proper perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed towards a central point.

Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations.

The Louvre is a good book to consult, but it must only be an intermediary. The real and immense study that must be taken up is the manifold picture of nature.

Sometimes I imagine colors as if they were living ideas, being of pure reason with which to communicate. Nature is not on the surface, it is deep down.

We must not be content to memorize the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors. Let us go out and study beautiful nature.

I lack the magnificent richness of color that animates nature.

One is neither too scrupulous nor too sincere nor too submissive to nature; but one is more or less master of one's model, and, above all, of the means of expression.

I cannot attain the intensity that is unfolded before my senses. I have not the magnificent richness of colouring that animates nature.

One had to immerse oneself in one's surroundings and intensely study nature or one's subject to understand how to recreate it.

Everything in nature is formed upon the sphere, the cone and the cylinder. One must learn to paint these simple figures and then one can do all that he may wish.

See nature in terms of the cone, the cylinder, and the sphere.

Doubtless there are things in nature which have not yet been seen. If an artist discovers them, he opens the way for his successors.

You say a new era in art is preparing; you sensed it coming; continue your studies without weakening. God will do the rest.

Keep good company - that is, go to the Louvre.

There is no such thing as an amateur artist as different from a professional artist. There is only good art and bad art.