Chaïm Soutine Quotes

Ah, the giant that is Rembrandt; he's God, he's God!

I never touched Cubism myself, you know, although I was attracted by it one time. When I was painting at Céret and at Cagnes [1919, and from 1923]. I yielded to its influence in spite of myself, and the results were not entirely banal. But then.. .Céret itself is anything but banal. There is so much foreshortening in the landscape that, for that very reason, a picture may seem to have been painted in some specific style [quote in 1927].

..My paintings are a heap of shit, but better than Modigliani, Marc Chagall, and Krémènge [a Russian companion painter]. Some day I will destroy my canvases, but they are too cowardly to do it.

Once I saw the village butcher [in his youth, in Russia] slice the neck of a bird and drain the blood out of it. I wanted to cry out, but his joyful expression caught the sound in my throat.. .This cry, I always feel it there. When, as a I drew a crude portrait of my professor, I tried to rid myself of this cry, but in vain. When I painted the beef carcass it was still this cry that I wanted to liberate. I have still not succeeded. [remark to his friend and biographer]

You have no right to interfere with my art. Your wife is not your property. I need her, in order to finish my picture, I must have her! I will sue you! [the woman returned by persuasion of the Castaings who supported Soutine].

You don't like my painting, you only want to help me. If you had given me one franc for my picture I would have taken it [when M. Castaing discovered his art for the very first time and offered him in advance 100 franc to make a new painting - circa 1917 – 1919]

It is the first time in my life that I have not been able to do anything. I am in a bad state of mind and I am demoralized, and that influences me. I have only [made] seven canvases. I am sorry. I wanted to leave Cagnes, this landscape that I cannot endure. I even went for a few days to Cap Martin, where I thought of settling down. It displeased me. I had to rub out the canvases I started.. .I am in Cagnes again, against my will, where, instead of landscapes, I shall be forced to do some miserable still lifes. You will understand in what a state of indecision I am. Can't you suggest some place for me? Because, several times I have had the intention of returning to Paris. [quote in 1929].

I want to show Paris in the carcass of an ox.

Dear Mrs. Castaing, please come over after midday at 2 o'clock with a white dress without sleeves in order to pose. Because today I will not go to Mrs. Saxe. I am disgusted to do nothing at all.