I heard the voices of the trees; the surprises of their movements. Their varieties of form and even their peculiarity of attraction toward the light … - Théodore Rousseau

The tree which rustles and the heather which grows are for me the grand history, that which will not change. If I speak well their language, I shall have spoken well the language of all times.

If my painting depicts faithfully and without over-refinement the simple and true character of the place you have frequented, if I succeed.. ..in giving its own life to that world of vegetation, then you will hear the trees moaning under the winter wind, the birds that call their young and cry after their dispersion ; you will feel the old chateau tremble; it will tell you that, as the wife you loved, it too will.. ..disappear and be reborn in multiple forms.. One does not copy with mathematical precision what one sees, but one feels and interprets a real world, all of whose fatalities hold you fast bound.

I thought only of one thing, to account to myself for the laws of light and perspective. I did not attach any importance to what they found original, new and romantic in me, I sought the picture.