Claude Monet Quotes

To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

I must have flowers, always, and always.

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

When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, house, a field....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 color and shape, until it gives your own naive impression of the scene before you.

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.

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

I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible.

The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.

Light is the most important person in the picture.

For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.

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.

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

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

It is better to have done something than to have been someone.

Everything changes, even stone.

My only desire is an intimate infusion with nature, and the only fate I wish is to have worked and lived in harmony with her laws.

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

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

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

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

All of a sudden I had the revelation of how enchanting my pond was.

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

What I need most of all is color, always, always.

I had so much fire in me and so many plans.

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

The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.

It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water.

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

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.

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece

It's enough to drive you crazy, trying to depict the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience.

My heart is forever in Giverny.

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

Listening only to my instincts, I discovered superb things.

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.

I'm continuing to work hard, not without periods of discouragement, but my strength comes back again.

Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue: it's enchanting, it's delicious, and I hope it will please you.

I see less and less... I need to avoid lateral light, which darkens my colors. Nevertheless, I always paint at the times of day most propitious for me, as long as my paint tubes and brushes are not mixed up... I will paint almost blind, as Beethoven composed completely deaf.

A good impression is lost so quickly.

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

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.

The real subject of every painting is light.

My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions.

Nature won't be summoned to order and won't be kept waiting. It must be caught, well caught.

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.

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

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

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.