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Artist Quotes by Claude Monet

55 Artist quotes by Claude Monet

All Artist quotes Claude Monet’s page

A sunrise over a pond can make Monet feel he could paint every detail, but he admits he often forgets while working. He calls himself an impressionist from the start and talks about dreaming of the baths at La Grenouillere. He also says that finishing touches are harder than they look and that techniques change while the heart of art stays the same.

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I never draw except with brush and paint...

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I can only draw what I see.

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I'm in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint.

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Most people think I paint fast. I paint very slowly.

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I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

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Zaandam has enough to paint for a lifetime.

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I didn't become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one.

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Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers.

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Techniques vary, art stays the same; it is a transposition of nature at once forceful and sensitive.

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If the world really looks like that I will paint no more!

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No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet.

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I think only of my painting, and if I were to drop it, I think I'd go crazy.

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I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint...

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“Water Lilies' is an extension of my life. Without the woter the lilies cannot live, as I am without art.”

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I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying…

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No one but myself knows the anxiety I go through and the trouble I give myself to finish paintings which do not…

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I do what I can to convey what I experience before nature and most often, in order to succeed in conveying what…

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I'm never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel.

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Impressionism is only direct sensation. All great painters were less or more impressionists. It is mainly a question of instinct, and much…

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I've done what I could as a painter and that seems to me to be sufficient. I don't want to be compared…

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People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love.

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I have never had a studio, and I do not understand shutting oneself up in a room. To draw, yes; to paint,…

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My aim is to give you only the things with which I am completely satisfied, even if it means asking you a…

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Manet wanted one day to paint my wife and children. Renoir was there. He took a canvas and began painting them, too.…

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When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, house, a field…Merely think,…

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Canvases between 8 centimetres and 1 metre are priced around 25,000 francs. In the past I used to sell them from between…

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I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the…

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I do have a dream, a tableau of the bathing place of La Grenouillère, for which I've done some bad pochades (sketches),…

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I know well enough in advance that you'll find my paintings perfect. I know that if they are exhibited they'll be a…

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I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want…

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I am very depressed and deeply disgusted with painting. It is really a continual torture.

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I would advise young artists to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly.

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When I look at nature I feel as if I'll be able to paint it all, note it all down, and then…

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I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found - the beauty…

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No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method…

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It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.

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I've spent so long on some paintings that I no longer know what to think of them, and I am definitely getting…

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Take clear water with grass waving at the bottom. It's wonderful to look at, but to try to paint it is enough…

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The effect of sincerity is to give one's work the character of a protest. The painter, being concerned only with conveying his…

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What can be said about a man who is interested in nothing but his painting? It's a pity if a man can…

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More by Claude Monet

It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.

When I look at nature I feel as if I'll be able to paint it all, note it all down, and then you might…

My life has been nothing but a failure.

Despite my extremely modest prices, dealers and art lovers are turning their backs on me. It is very depressing to see the lack of…

I didn't become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one.

I have once more taken up things that can't be done: water with grasses weaving on the bottom. But I'm always tackling that sort…

All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it.

I do have a dream, a painting, the baths of La Grenouillere for which I've done a few bad rough sketches, but it is…

While adding the finishing touches to a painting might appear insignificant, it is much harder to do than one might suppose...

What is it that's taken hold of me, for me to carry on like this in relentless pursuit of something beyond my powers?

I've said it before and can only repeat that I owe everything to Boudin and I attribute my success to him. I came to…

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. To such an extent indeed that one day, finding myself at the deathbed of a woman…

It would be a very bad idea... to exhibit even a small number of this new series, as the whole effect can only be…

By the single example of this painter devoted to his art with such independence, my destiny as a painter opened out to me.

It would be asking too much to want to sell only to connoisseurs - that way starvation lies.