My will exceeds my talents.

I do not paint what I see, but what I saw.

Art comes from joy and pain...But mostly from pain.

A work of art comes only from inside a human being.

Oil-painting is a developed technique. Why go backwards?

Some colors reconcile themselves to one another, others just clash.

Without fear and disease, my life would be like a boat without oars.

Without fear and illness, I could never have accomplished all I have

Photography is an art which touches and grips one's own heart's blood.

Without anxiety and illness I would have been like a ship without a rudder.

Without anxiety and illness I should have been like a ship without a rudder.

When I paint a person, his enemies always find the portrait a good likeness.

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.

There is a battle that goes on between men and women. Many people call it love.

I don’t believe in an art that is not born out of man’s need to open his heart.

And I would often wake up at night and stare widely into the room: Am I in Hell?

I have no fear of photography as long as it cannot be used in heaven and in hell.

Colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.

The colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.

All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart's blood. Art is your heart's blood.

It is better to have a good painting with ten holes than ten bad paintings without any holes.

Death is pitch-dark, but colors are light. To be a painter, one must work with rays of light.

What is art? Art grows from joy and sorrow, but mostly from sorrow. It grows from human lives.

I do not believe in the art which is not the compulsive result of man's urge to open his heart

The rich man who gives, steals twice over. First he steals the money and then the hearts of men.

Just as Leonardo da Vinci studied human anatomy and dissected corpses, so I try to dissect souls.

One can easily tell that the creator of the paintings in the Sistine Chapel was above all a sculptor

But can they [great works] get rid of the worm that lies gnawing at the roots of my heart? No, never.

I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw.

One can easily tell that the creator of the paintings in the Sistine Chapel was above all a sculptor.

Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.

A person himself believes that all the other portraits are good likenesses except the one of himself.

I sense a scream passing through nature. I painted ... the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked.

My art is rooted in a single reflection: why am I not as others are? ... my art gives meaning to my life.

In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color

In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color.

Youth must go ahead and prosper. These young painters are all very talented people, but they all paint frescoes.

Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life.

For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art.

My breakthrough came very late in life, really only starting when I was 50...I had the strength for new deeds and ideas.

The viewers must come to understand the sacredness of painting, so they will remove their hats as if they were in church.

Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life.

Through my art I have tried to explain my life and its meaning. I have also intended to help others to clarify their lives.

The camera will never compete with the brush and the palette, until such time as photographs can be taken in Heaven or Hell.

It was always my intention that The Frieze should be housed in a room which would provide a suitable architectural frame for it.

A work of art can only come from the interior of man. Art is the form of the image formed upon the nerves, heart, brain and eye of man.

No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.

The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose.

In my childhood I always felt that I was treated unjustly, without a mother, sick, and with the threat of punishment in Hell hanging over my head

In my childhood I always felt that I was treated unjustly, without a mother, sick, and with the threat of punishment in Hell hanging over my head.

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