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Claude Monet - From the Advice category:
-to Paul Durand-Ruel...
I took your advice and managed to make some quite good things out of paintings I considered irredeemable. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Advice category:
One day Boudin said to me, 'Learn to draw well and appreciate the sea, the light, the blue sky.' I took his advice. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Aging category:
I'm getting so slow at my work it makes me despair, but... I'm increasingly obsessed by the need to render what I experience, and I'm praying that I'll have a few more good years left to me... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Anxiety category:
No one but myself knows the anxiety I go through and the trouble I give myself to finish paintings which do not satisfy me and seem to please so very few others. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Application category:
Take clear water with grass waving at the bottom. It's wonderful to look at, but to try to paint it is enough to make one insane. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Change category:
For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at any moment. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Colour category:
Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green and red... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Colour category:
Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Colour category:
Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Colour category:
The point is to know how to use the colours, the choice of which is, when all's said and done, a matter of habit. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Colour category:
-painting in Bordighera, Italy...
I haven't yet managed to capture the colour of this landscape; there are moments when I'm appalled at the colours I'm having to use, I'm afraid what I'm doing is just dreadful and yet I really am understating it; the light is simply terrifying. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Contentment category:
I'm quite content: although what I'm doing is far from being as I should like, I am complemented often enough all the same... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Courage category:
It's raining again and once again I have had to put the studies I started to one side... I am witnessing a complete transformation taking place in Nature, and my courage is failing as a result. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Criticism category:
Lots of people will protest that it's quite unreal and that I'm out of my mind, but that's just too bad... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Criticism category:
I've done what I could as a painter and that seems to me to be sufficient. I don't want to be compared to the great masters of the past, and my painting is open to criticism; that's enough. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Criticism category:
While we sketched from a model, Gleyre criticized my work: 'It is not too bad,' he said, 'but the breast is heavy, the shoulder is too powerful, and the foot too big.' I can only draw what I see, I replied timidly. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Criticism category:
Manet wanted one day to paint my wife and children. Renoir was there. He took a canvas and began painting them, too. After a while, Manet took me aside and whispered, 'You're on very good terms with Renoir and take an interest in his future - do advise him to give up painting! You can see for yourself that it's not his metier at all.' (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Critics category:
I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Danger category:
I was hard at work beneath the cliff... In short, absorbed as I was, I didn't see a huge wave coming; it threw me against the cliff and I was tossed about... My immediate thought was that I was done for... the palette which I had kept a grip on had been knocked over my face and my beard was covered in blue, yellow etc.... the worst of it was that I lost my painting which was very soon broken up... everything was torn to shreds by the sea... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Danger category:
- at Giverny, September 1, 1914...
A mad panic has swept our area... As for myself, I'm staying here regardless and if those savages insist on killing me, they'll have to do it in the midst of my paintings, before my life's work. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Dealers category:
-to Amand Gautier...
I'm working hard with more determination than ever. My success at the Salon led to my selling several paintings and since your absence I have made 800 francs; I hope, when I have contracts with more dealers, it will be better still. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Dealers category:
-to Paul Durand-Ruel...
My aim is to give you only the things with which I am completely satisfied, even if it means asking you a little more [time] for them... for if I were to do otherwise I'd turn into a mere painting machine and you would be landed with a pile of incomplete work which would put off the most enthusiastic of art collectors... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Dealers category:
-to Paul Durand-Ruel...
Surely you already have a fair number? You do, it's true, keep them cleverly hidden, since they're never on display, which in my opinion is a mistake: what's the point of us painting pictures if the public never gets to see them? (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Depression category:
I am very depressed and deeply disgusted with painting. It is really a continual torture. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Depression category:
To have gone to all this trouble to get to this is just too stupid! Outside there's brilliant sunshine but I don't feel up to looking at it... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Desire category:
I'm in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Desperation category:
-to Arsene Houssaye...
You might perhaps like to see the few canvases I was able to save from the bailiffs and the rest, since I thought you might be so good as to help me a little, as I am in quite a desperate state, and the worst is that I can no longer even work. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Destiny category:
- at age 17...
By the single example of this painter devoted to his art with such independence, my destiny as a painter opened out to me. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Determination category:
It goes without saying that I will do anything at any price to pull myself out of a situation like this [rejection] so that I can start work immediately on my next Salon picture and ensure that such a thing should not happen again. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Difficulty category:
It's enough to drive you crazy, trying to depict the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Difficulty category:
It seems to me that when I see nature I see it ready-made, completely written – but then, try to do it! (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Difficulty category:
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 of thing! (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Difficulty category:
It really is appallingly difficult to do something which is complete in every respect, and I think most people are content with mere approximations. Well, my dear friend, I intend to battle on, scrape off and start again... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Difficulty category:
-in a letter to Bazille...
It's harder than you think, and I'll bet that you would not split much wood. No, you see, advice is very difficult to give, and I don't think it would serve any purpose, if I may say so without offense. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Drawing category:
I never draw except with brush and paint... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Eccentricity category:
I was so upset yesterday that I made the blunder of throwing myself in the water. Fortunately, there were no bad results. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Effort category:
I hope that something will come out of so much effort... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Enthusiasm category:
- as a young painter...
Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It's enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Enthusiasm category:
-to Alice Monet...
I'm not lacking for enthusiasm as you can see, given that I have something like 65 canvases covered with paint and I'll be needing more since the place is quite out of the ordinary; so I'm going to order some more canvases... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Exhaustion category:
I'm knocked out, I've never felt so physically and mentally exhausted, I'm quite stupid with it and long only for bed; but I am happy... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Exhaustion category:
-painting in Bordighera, Italy...
I am exhausted... A task like this is possible for a month but for more than two it's murderous... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Exhibitions category:
With the collective exhibitions we have always held and too often repeated, we will finish up with public curiosity satiated and the Press still against us. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Exhibitions category:
I hear that my friends are preparing another exhibition this year but I must discount the possibility of participating in it since I have nothing worth showing. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Exhibitions category:
-to Berthe Morisot...
I am pleased with the exhibition... everything on display was sold for a good price to decent people. It has been a long time since I believed that you could educate public taste... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Exhibitions category:
-to Paul Durand-Ruel...
It would be a very bad idea... to exhibit even a small number of this new series, as the whole effect can only be achieved from an exhibition of the entire group. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Fear category:
We are literally in the water... and the house can only be reached by boat; we had to take refuge on the first floor but the water is still rising and where will all this end? It's quite frightening... Painting is out of the question... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Finishing category:
It is difficult to stop in time because one gets carried away. But I have that strength; it is the only strength I have. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Finishing category:
While adding the finishing touches to a painting might appear insignificant, it is much harder to do than one might suppose... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Finishing category:
I say that whoever claims to have finished a canvas is terribly arrogant. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Finishing category:
I'm never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Finishing category:
I'm going to offer fifty francs to my landlord to see if I can have the oak tree's leaves removed... Isn't it the final straw to be finishing a winter landscape at this time of year... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Fire category:
...I had so much fire in me and so many plans... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Frustration category:
I've spent so long on some paintings that I no longer know what to think of them, and I am definitely getting harder to please; nothing satisfies me... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Gratitude category:
Thanks to my work everything's going well; it's a great consolation. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Greatness category:
No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Happiness category:
I'm very happy, very delighted. I'm setting to like a fighting cockerel, for I'm surrounded here by all that I love. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Health category:
I'm not at all surprised at what you say about your tiredness, since it's easy to get used to not going for walks... Mine is a dog's life and I never stop walking; I walk here, there and everywhere. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Imitation category:
You might find it [my study] bears a certain relationship to Corot, but if this is so, it is not because of any attempt to imitate him on my part... I did it as conscientiously as possible and did not think of any painting whatsoever. Besides, you know that's not the way I do things. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Impossibilities category:
I am enslaved to my work, always wanting the impossible, and never, I believe, have I been less favoured by the endlessly changeable weather. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Impotence category:
I've only myself to blame for it, my impotence most of all and my weakness. If I do any good work now it will be only by chance. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Impressionism category:
I didn't become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Impressionism category:
A good impression is lost so quickly... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Insecurity category:
The creditors are proving impossible to deal with and short of a sudden appearance on the scene of wealthy art patrons, we are going to be turned out of this dear little house where I led a simple life and was able to work so well. I do not know what will become of us... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Instinct category:
Impressionism is only direct sensation. All great painters were less or more impressionists. It is mainly a question of instinct, and much simpler than [John Singer] Sargent thinks. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Interest category:
What can be said about a man who is interested in nothing but his painting? It's a pity if a man can only interest himself in one thing. But I can't do any thing else. I have only one interest. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Knowledge category:
The further I go, the sorrier I am about how little I know: it is this that bothers me the most. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Light category:
When it is dark, it seems to me as if I were dying, and I can't think any more. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Limitations category:
I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Loneliness category:
It's the hardest thing to be alone in being satisfied with what one's done. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Masters category:
I intend to do a large painting of the cliff at Etretat, although it is terribly bold of me to do so after Courbet has painted it so admirably, but I will try to do it in a different way... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Masters category:
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 be fascinated by his studies, the products of what I call instantaneity. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Mediocrity category:
Perhaps it's true that I'm very hard on myself, but that's better than exhibiting mediocre work... too few were satisfactory enough to trouble the public with. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Methodology category:
No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Miracles category:
I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Mistakes category:
I'm in a foul mood as I'm making stupid mistakes... This morning I lost beyond repair a painting with which I had been happy, having done about twenty sessions on it; it had to be thoroughly scraped away... what a rage I was in! (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Mistakes category:
I let a good many mistakes show through when fixing my sensations. It will always be the same and this is what makes me despair. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Money category:
I'm going to get down to a still life on a size 50 canvas of rayfish and dogfish with old fishermen's baskets. Then I'm going to turn out a few pictures to send wherever possible, given that now, first and foremost - unfortunately - I have to earn some money. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Nature category:
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 as well forget it once you're working... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Nature category:
I would like to paint the way a bird sings. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Nature category:
- as a young painter...
My eyes were finally opened and I understood nature. I learned at the same time to love it. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Nature category:
I am following Nature without being able to grasp her... I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Nature category:
If only the weather would improve, there'd be hope of some work, but every day brings rain. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Nature category:
Nature won't be summoned to order and won't be kept waiting. It must be caught, well caught. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Obsession category:
I think only of my painting, and if I were to drop it, I think I'd go crazy. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Obsession category:
These landscapes of water and reflections have become an obsession. It's quite beyond my powers at my age, and yet I want to succeed in expressing what I feel. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Painting category:
Most people think I paint fast. I paint very slowly. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Painting category:
Happy are the young people who believe that it is easy. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Painting category:
When you go out to paint try to forget what object you have before you - a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact colour and shape, until it emerges as your own naive impression of the scene before you. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Peace category:
I'm enjoying the most perfect tranquillity, free from all worries, and in consequence would like to stay this way forever, in a peaceful corner of the countryside like this. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Perfection category:
-to Paul Durand-Ruel...
I know well enough in advance that you'll find my paintings perfect. I know that if they are exhibited they'll be a great success, but I couldn't be more indifferent to it since I know they are bad, I'm certain of it. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Pleasure category:
I still have a lot of pleasure doing them, but as time goes by I come to appreciate more clearly which paintings are good and which should be discarded. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Pricing category:
Since rejection at the Salon, and despite my extremely modest prices, dealers and art lovers are turning their backs on me. It is, above all, very depressing to see the lack of interest shown in an art object which has no market value. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Questions category:
What is it that's taken hold of me, for me to carry on like this in relentless pursuit of something beyond my powers? (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Rejection category:
My rejection at the Salon brought an end to my hesitation [to settle in Paris] since after this failure I can no longer claim to cope... alas, that fatal rejection has virtually taken the bread out of my mouth. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Relaxation category:
I've been working so hard that I'm exhausted... I feel I won't be able to do without a few weeks' rest, so I'm going off to see the sea. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Responsibility category:
Getting up at 4 in the morning, I slave away all day until by the evening I'm exhausted, and I end by forgetting all my responsibilities, thinking only of the work I've set out to do. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Rules category:
Never, even as a child, would I bend to a rule. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Rules category:
I do what I can to convey what I experience before nature and most often, in order to succeed in conveying what I feel, I totally forget the most elementary rules of painting, if they exist that is. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Satisfaction category:
One day I am satisfied, the next day I find it all bad; still I hope that some day I will find some of them good... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Seeing category:
Paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see; not the object isolated as in a test tube, but the object enveloped in sunlight and atmosphere, with the blue dome of Heaven reflected in the shadows. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Selling category:
It would be asking too much to want to sell only to connoisseurs - that way starvation lies. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Selling category:
Canvases between 8 centimetres and 1 metre are priced around 25,000 francs. In the past I used to sell them from between 50 to 100 francs at the most. I have to say... that I feel somewhat embarrassed at this admission. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Silence category:
When we were attacked and even vilified in the newspapers we could always comfort ourselves with the thought that it was all a measure of our worth since no one would have bothered about us if that weren't the case. So how should this silence be interpreted? (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Sleep category:
I still don't know where I am going to sleep tomorrow. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Sleep category:
-in Belle Ile...
Despite my exhaustion I have a devil of a time getting to sleep because of the rats above my bed and a pig who lives beneath my room... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Solitude category:
My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Solitude category:
One's better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one's own. In fact it's a terrible business and the task is a hard one. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Spectator category:
People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Standards category:
I would advise young artists... to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly... If their painting doesn't improve by itself, it means that nothing can be done – and I wouldn't do anything! (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Strength category:
I'm continuing to work hard, not without periods of discouragement, but my strength comes back again. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Strength category:
It is on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Struggle category:
For almost two months now I've been struggling away with no result. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Studio category:
I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Studio category:
-in the floating studio...
Today I drifted with Camille on the Seine at Argenteuil. The views materialized and dissolved and I was as contented as a cow in her stall. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Subject category:
Critic asks: 'And what, sir, is the subject matter of that painting?' - 'The subject matter, my dear good fellow, is the light.' (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Success category:
As for myself, I met with as much success as I could ever have wanted. In other words, I was enthusiastically run-down by every critic of the period. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Success category:
Now, more than ever, I realize just how illusory my undeserved success has been. I still hold out some hope of doing better, but age and unhappiness have sapped my strength. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Suffering category:
- at Giverny, January 15, 1915...
I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It's true that fretting never did any good. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Suffering category:
Work is nearly always a torture. If I could find something else I would be much happier, because I could use this other interest as a form of relaxation. Now I cannot relax. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Technique category:
Techniques vary, art stays the same; it is a transposition of nature at once forceful and sensitive. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Technique category:
I've always refused requests even from friends to employ a technique I know nothing about. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Theme category:
I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain. When I felt I had enough cards I determined to pass to action, and did so. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Time category:
You'll understand, I'm sure that I'm chasing the merest sliver of color. It's my own fault. I want to grasp the intangible. It's terrible how the light runs out. Color, any color, lasts a second, sometimes 3 or 4 minutes at most... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Time category:
I haven't many years left ahead of me and I must devote all my time to painting, in the hope of achieving something worthwhile in the end, something if possible that will satisfy me. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Understanding category:
One can do something if one can see and understand it... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Understanding category:
To paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its ways in that particular spot. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Uniqueness category:
The painter, being concerned only with giving his impression, simply seeks to be himself and no one else. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Uniqueness category:
One is too taken up with all that one sees and hears in Paris, however strong one is, and what I do here [in Etretat] will at least have the merit of being unlike anyone else, at least I believe so, because it will simply be the expression of what I, and only I, have felt. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Vulnerability category:
I'd like to be able to leave today so I wouldn't have to set eyes again on all the places I was unable to paint. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Wonder category:
I can't begin to describe a day as wonderful as this. One marvel after another, each lasting less than five minutes, it was enough to drive one mad. No country could be more extraordinary for a painter. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Work category:
When I work I forget all the rest. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Work category:
I spend my time out-of-doors on the shingle when the weather's stormy or when the boats go out fishing; otherwise I go into the country which is so lovely here... and naturally I'm working all the time... (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Work category:
I'm hard at work with four paintings under way; it's now a matter of finishing them and doing four more and so on. (Claude Monet)
Claude Monet - From the Work category:
Think of me getting up before 6, I'm at work by 7 and I continue until 6.30 in the evening, standing up all the time, nine canvases. It's murderous... (Claude Monet)
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