Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness.

This kind of painting with its large frames is a bourgeois drawing-room art. It is an art dealer's art-and that came in after the civil wars following the French Revolution.

I should have considered it wrong to have finished the Frieze before the room for its accommodation and the funds for its completion were available.

The rich man who gives, steals twice over. First he steals the money and then the hearts of men.