Claude Monet quotes

Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment. (Claude Monet)
Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love. View quote
Claude Monet
My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece. View quote
Claude Monet
I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. View quote
Claude Monet
I can only draw what I see. View quote
Claude Monet
I have a dream a picture of the bathing spot at the Grenouillere, for which I've made a few poor sketches, but it is a dream. Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Claude Monet
Ninety percent of the theory of Impressionist painting is in.... Ruskin's Elements. View quote
Claude Monet
I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way in that particular spot; and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even. View quote
Claude Monet
I didn't become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one. (Claude Monet)
Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. To such an extent indeed that one day, finding myself at the deathbed of a woman who had been and still was very dear to me, I caught myself in the act of focusing on her temples and automatically analyzing the succession of appropriately graded colors which death was imposing on her motionless face. View quote
Claude Monet
Apart from painting and gardening, I'm not good at anything. View quote
Claude Monet
Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers. View quote
Claude Monet
I can no longer work outside because of the intensity of the light. View quote
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. View quote
Claude Monet
..but what a pity that I did not come here [in Venice] when I was younger and more adventurous. View quote
Claude Monet
I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint. View quote
Claude Monet
I have gone back to some things that can't possibly be done: water, with weeds waving at the bottom. It is a wonderful sight, but it drives one to crazy to try to paint it. But that is the kind of thing I am always a tackling. View quote
Claude Monet
I hope that Cezanne will still be here and that he will join us, but he is so shy, so afraid of meeting new people, that I am afraid that he might let us down, even though he wants very much to meet you. How sad it is that this man hasn't had more patronage in his life! This is a true artist who has come to doubt himself far too much. He needs to be cheered up, so e was quote touched by your article. View quote
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 very sorry to inconvenience you [ the art dealers G. and J. Berheim-Jeune ], but I find it impossible to supply you with any more Venice pictures. It was useless trying to persuade my self otherwise, the work that's left is too poor for exhibition. Don't insist.. .I've enough good sense in me to know whether what I'm doing is good or bad, and it' utterly bad, and I can't believe that people of taste, if they have any knowledge at all, could see any value in it. Things have been dragging on like this for far too long.. View quote
Claude Monet
These palms are driving me crazy; the motifs are extremely difficult to seize, to put on canvas; it's so bushy everywhere, although delightful to the eye... I would like to do orange and lemon trees silhouetted against the blue sea, but cannot find them as I would like. View quote
Claude Monet
A group of painters assembled in my home, read with pleasure the article you published in 'L'Avenir national'. We are all very pleased to see you defend ideas which are also ours, and we hope that, as you say, 'L'Avenir national' will kindly lend us its support when the Society we are in the process of forming is finally established. View quote
Claude Monet
I was thinking of preparing my palette and my brushes to resume work, but relapses and further bouts of pain prevented it. I'm not giving up that hope and am occupying myself with some major alterations in my studios and plans to perfect the garden [in Giverny ]. All this to show you that, with courage, I'm getting the upper hand. [three months before Monet died]. View quote
Claude Monet