Claude Monet Quotes & Sayings

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

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

It is only too easy to catch people's attention by doing something worse than anyone else has dared to do it before. — Claude Monet

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

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

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

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

The real subject of every painting is light. — Claude Monet

I never draw except with brush and paint ... — Claude Monet

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

Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep. — Claude Monet

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

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

The effect of sincerity is to give one's work the character of a protest. The painter, being concerned only with conveying his impression, simply seeks to be himself and no one else. — Claude 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

It seems to me that when I see nature I see it ready-made, completely written - but then, try to do it! — Claude Monet

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

The further I get, the more I regret how little I know ... — Claude Monet

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

I work at my garden all the time and with love. What I need most are flowers, always. My heart is forever in Giverny. — Claude Monet

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

One can do something if one can see and understand it ... — Claude Monet

I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics. — Claude Monet

No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet. — Claude Monet

I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found - the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible. — Claude Monet

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. — Claude Monet

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

What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence. — Claude Monet

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

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

Impression - I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it ... and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape. — Claude Monet

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. — Claude Monet

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

Pictures aren't made out of doctrines. Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green, and red ... But peppermint or chocolate, they are still confections. — Claude Monet

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

Thanks to my work everything's going well; it's a great consolation. — Claude Monet

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

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

It's the hardest thing to be alone in being satisfied with what one's done. — Claude Monet

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

As for myself, I met with as much success as I ever could have wanted. In other words, I was enthusiastically run-down by every critic of the period. — Claude Monet

I've always refused requests even from friends to employ a technique I know nothing about. — Claude Monet

It is better to have done something than to have been someone. — Claude Monet

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. — Claude Monet

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

Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment. — Claude Monet

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

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

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

These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession. — Claude Monet

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

What I need most of all is color, always, always. — Claude Monet

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

I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain. — Claude Monet

I get madder and madder on giving back what I feel. — Claude Monet

People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love. — Claude Monet

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

I insist upon 'doing it alone' ... I have always worked better alone and from my own impressions. — Claude Monet

Without the fog, London would not be a beautiful city. It is fog that gives it its magnificent amplitude ... its regular and massive blocks become grandiose in that mysterious mantle. — Claude Monet

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

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

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

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

I would love to do orange and lemon trees silhouetted against the blue sea, but I cannot find them the way I want them. — Claude Monet

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. — Claude Monet

I can only draw what I see. — Claude Monet

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

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

Most people think I paint fast. I paint very slowly. — Claude Monet

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

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

Techniques vary, art stays the same; it is a transposition of nature at once forceful and sensitive. — Claude Monet

For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject. — Claude Monet

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

I would like to paint the way a bird sings. — Claude Monet

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

My heart is forever in Giverny. — Claude Monet

It would be asking too much to want to sell only to connoisseurs - that way starvation lies. — Claude Monet

Everyday 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

When I work I forget all the rest. — Claude Monet

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

Everything changes, even stone. — Claude Monet

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

When it is dark, it seems to me as if I were dying, and I can't think any more. — Claude Monet

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

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

Despite my extremely modest prices, dealers and art lovers are turning their backs on me. It is very depressing to see the lack of interest shown in an art object which has no market value. — Claude Monet

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. — Claude Monet

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

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

I have made tremendous efforts to work in a darker register and express the sinister and tragic quality of the place, given my natural tendency to work in light and pale tones. — Claude Monet

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

I must have flowers, always, and always. — Claude Monet

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

The Thames was all gold. God it was beautiful, so fine that I began working a frenzy, following the sun and its reflections on the water. — Claude Monet

For almost two months now I've been struggling away with no result. — Claude Monet

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

... Every day I discover even more beautiful things. It is intoxicating me, and I want to paint it all - my head is bursting ... — Claude Monet

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

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