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Painting Quotes by Claude Monet

42 Painting quotes by Claude Monet

All Painting quotes Claude Monet’s page

Monet’s dream of the baths of La Grenouillere shows how a single vision can drive a whole painting. He writes that finishing touches are harder than they seem, and that an artist must hold the picture in his mind before the brush ever touches canvas. His words also reveal the anxiety of never being satisfied with the result, a feeling many creators know well.

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I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.

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

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

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I never draw except with brush and paint...

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“What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.”

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

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The real subject of every painting is light.

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Zaandam has enough to paint for a lifetime.

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I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

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What could be said about me...a man to whom only his painting matters? And of course his garden and his flowers as…

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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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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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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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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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It took me time to understand my water lilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without…

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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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Etretat is becoming more and more amazing. Now is the real moment: the beach with all its fine boats; it is superb,…

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

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I'm in a foul mood as I'm making stupid mistakes... This morning I lost beyond repair a painting with which I had…

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I see less and less... I need to avoid lateral light, which darkens my colors. Nevertheless, I always paint at the times…

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I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

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Apart from painting and gardening, I'm not good at anything.

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I say that whoever claims to have finished a canvas is terribly arrogant.

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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 still have a lot of pleasure doing them, but as time goes by I come to appreciate more clearly which paintings…

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

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

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

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Ninety per cent of the theory of Impressionist painting is in . . . Ruskin's Elements.

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Critic asks: 'And what, sir, is the subject matter of that painting?' - 'The subject matter, my dear good fellow, is the…

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I'm not lacking for enthusiasm as you can see, given that I have something like 65 canvases covered with paint and I'll…

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I'm working hard with more determination than ever. My success at the Salon led to my selling several paintings and since your…

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I intend to do a large painting of the cliff at Etretat, although it is terribly bold of me to do so…

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I haven't many years left ahead of me and I must devote all my time to painting, in the hope of achieving…

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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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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.