Top 120 Paul Cézanne Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “The clear French landscape is as pure as a verse of Racine.”

— Paul Cézanne

52. “Literature expresses itself by abstractions, whereas painting, by means of drawing and colour, gives concrete shape to sensations and perceptions.”

— Paul Cézanne

53. “In order to make progress, there is only nature, and the eye is turned through contact with her.”

— Paul Cézanne

54. “I could paint for a hundred years, a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing.”

— Paul Cézanne

55. “There is no model, there is only color.”

— Paul Cézanne

56. “The approbation of others is a stimulus of which one must sometimes be wary. The feeling of one’s own strength makes one modest.”

— Paul Cézanne

57. “I ask you to pray for me, for once age has overtaken us, we find consolation only in religion.”

— Paul Cézanne

58. “I have not tried to reproduce nature; I have represented it.”

— Paul Cézanne

59. “Perhaps I was born too early. I was more the painter of your generation than of mine.”

— Paul Cézanne

60. “I am the primitive of the method I have invented.”

— Paul Cézanne

61. “Knowledge of the means to express our emotion is essential- and is acquired only after a very long experience.”

— Paul Cézanne

62. “I am beginning to consider myself stronger than all those around me, and you know that the good opinion I have of myself has only been reached after mature consideration.”

— Paul Cézanne

63. “You say a new era in art is preparing; you sensed it coming; continue your studies without weakening. God will do the rest.”

— Paul Cézanne

64. “A thousand painters ought to be killed yearly. Say what you like: I’m every inch a painter.”

— Paul Cézanne

65. “If isolation tempers the strong, it is the stumbling-block of the uncertain.”

— Paul Cézanne

66. “Keep good company – that is, go to the Louvre.”

— Paul Cézanne

67. “Long live the sun which gives us such beautiful color.”

— Paul Cézanne

68. “Genius is the ability to renew one’s emotions in daily experience.”

— Paul Cézanne

69. “Here on the edge of the river, the motifs are very plentiful, the same subject seen from a different angle gives a subject for study of the highest interest and so varied that I think I could be occupied for months without changing my place, simply bending a little more to the right or left.”

— Paul Cézanne

70. “The contour eludes me.”

— Paul Cézanne

71. “There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.”

— Paul Cézanne

72. “Design and color are not distinct and separate. As one paints, one draws. The more the colors harmonize, the more the design takes form. When color is at it’s richest, form is at its fullest.”

— Paul Cézanne

73. “I allow no one to touch me.”

— Paul Cézanne

74. “If you see a red tree, paint it bright red.”

— Paul Cézanne

75. “See how the light tenderly love the apricots, it takes them over completely, enters into their pulp, light them from all sides! But it is miserly with the peaches and light only one side of them.”

— Paul Cézanne

76. “I wished to copy nature. I could not. But I was satisfied when I discovered the sun, for instance, could not be reproduced, but only represented by something else.”

— Paul Cézanne

77. “Get to the heart of what is before you and continue to express yourself as logically as possible.”

— Paul Cézanne

78. “One is neither too scrupulous nor too sincere nor too submissive to nature; but one is more or less master of one’s model, and, above all, of the means of expression.”

— Paul Cézanne

79. “Taste is the best judge. It is rare. Art only addresses itself to an excessively small number of individuals.”

— Paul Cézanne

80. “Here, on the river’s verge, I could be busy for months without changing my place, simply leaning a little more to right or left.”

— Paul Cézanne

81. “Don’t be an art critic. Paint. There lies salvation.”

— Paul Cézanne

82. “All pictures painted inside in the studio will never be as good as the things done outside.”

— Paul Cézanne

83. “A puny body weakens the soul.”

— Paul Cézanne

84. “One had to immerse oneself in one’s surroundings and intensely study nature or one’s subject to understand how to recreate it.”

— Paul Cézanne

85. “I want to die painting.”

— Paul Cézanne

86. “Painting, like any art, comprises a technique, a workmanlike handling of material, but the accuracy of a tone and the fictitious combination of effects depend entirely on the choice made by the artist.”

— Paul Cézanne

87. “I am not altogether displeased with the shirt-front.”

— Paul Cézanne

88. “I’ll always be grateful to the public of intelligent amateurs.”

— Paul Cézanne

89. “One must see one’s model correctly and experience it in the right way; and furthermore express oneself forcibly and with distinction.”

— Paul Cézanne

90. “Talks on art are almost useless. The work which goes to bring progress in one’s own subject is sufficient compensation for the incomprehension of imbeciles.”

— Paul Cézanne

91. “To achieve progress nature alone counts, and the eye is trained through contact with her. It becomes concentric by looking and working.”

— Paul Cézanne

92. “What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is a harmony parallel with nature.”

— Paul Cézanne

93. “Pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and colour are not distinct, everything in nature is coloured.”

— Paul Cézanne

94. “All my compatriots are asses compared to me.”

— Paul Cézanne

95. “I have nothing to hide in art. The initial force alone can bring anyone to the end he must attain.”

— Paul Cézanne

96. “The artist must scorn all judgment that is not based on an intelligent observation of character. He must beware of the literary spirit which so often causes a painting to deviate from its true path – the concrete study of nature – to lose itself all too long in intangible speculations.”

— Paul Cézanne

97. “Michelangelo is a constructor, and Rafael an artist who, great as he is, is always limited by the model. When he tries to be thoughtful he falls below the niveau of his great rival.”

— Paul Cézanne

98. “The transposition that a painter makes with an original vision gives to the representation of nature a new interest.”

— Paul Cézanne

99. “I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not really possible to help others.”

— Paul Cézanne

100. “Surely, a single bunch of carrots painted naively, just as we personally see it, is worth all the endless banalities of the Schools, all those dreary pictures concocted out of tobacco juice according to time-honored formulas?”

— Paul Cézanne