Monet Claude Quotes & Sayings

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

I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home. — 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. — Claude Monet

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

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

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

Listening only to my instincts, I discovered superb things. — 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers. — 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

I'm in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint. — Claude Monet

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

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

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

If only the weather would improve, there'd be hope of some work, but every day brings rain. — Claude Monet

The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects. — 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

Never, even as a child, would I bend to a rule. — Claude Monet

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

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

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

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

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

In Naples, Fla., I met a self-made man, a multimillionaire, whose round penthouse apartment is home to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Henry Moore, and Mickey Mantle. He had purchased the most coveted items auctioned by the Mantle family at Madison Square Garden in December 2003. — Jane Leavy

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

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

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

... 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

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

Everything changes, even stone. — 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

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

I had so much fire in me and so many plans ... — Claude Monet

When I work I forget all the rest. — 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

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

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

My heart is forever in Giverny. — 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

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

I hate darkness. Claude Monet once said that painting in general did not have light enough in it. I agree with him. We painters, however, can never reproduce sunlight as it really is. I can only approach the truth of it. — Joaquin Sorolla

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

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

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

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

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

I can no longer work outside because of the intensity of the light. — 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

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

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 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

What could be said about me ... a man to whom only his painting matters? And of course his garden and his flowers as well. — Claude Monet

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

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

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

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

My garden is a slow work, pursued with love and I do not deny that I am proud of it. Forty years ago, when I established myself here, there was nothing but a farmhouse and a poor orchard ... I bought the house and little by little I enlarged and organized it ... I dug, planted weeded, myself; in the evenings the children watered. — Claude Monet

I don't think I'm made for any earthly kind of pleasure. — 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

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

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

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

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