I Find It Difficult To Imagine An

What Is Art? Art Grows From Joy And Sorrow, But Mostly From Sorrow. It Grows From Human Lives.

It Would Be Quite Amusing To Preach A Bit To All Those People Who For Many Years Now Have Been Looking At Our Paintings And Either Laughed Or Shook Their Heads Reproachfully. They Do Not Believe That These Impressions, These Instant Sensations, Could Contain Even The Smallest Grain Of Sanity. If A Tree Is Red Or Blue, Or A Face Is Blue Or Green, They Are Sure That Is Insanity.

I Have Been Given A Unique Role To Play On This Earth: Given To Me By A Life Filled With Sickness, Ill-starred Circumstances And My Profession As An Artist. It Is A Life That Contains Nothing That Resembles Happiness, And Moreover Does Not Even Desire Happiness.

Your Face Encompasses The Beauty Of The Whole Earth. Your Lips, As Red As Ripening Fruit, Gently Part As If In Pain. It Is The Smile Of A Corpse. Now The Hand Of Death Touches Life. The Chain Is Forged That Links The Thousand Families That Are Dead To The Thousand Generations To Come.

I Do Not Believe In The Art Which Is Not The Compulsive Result Of Man's Urge To Open His Heart