Hugo, [Claus] Now you should see my recent works. A drawing in ink, three pencil drawings and two sketches in oil-paint: a still-life and a landscape… - Roger Raveel

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Wat nu mijn tentoonstelling betreft (opening was 8 mei 1954, in Gent].. .er is echter een recent en belangrijk werk bij n.l. 'Man met boompje' [later 'De Tuinman' getiteld] - permettez-moi- met mooie brekende materies en kleur: citroengele vlekken en lakachtig zwarte op wit, (gezicht) transparante zuivere lichte blauwe met een heel dunne glacis erover (in muurtje) en sterk blauwe geschilderde vertikale lijn. Geelbruine en mauve vegen met daarop kleine rode streepjes (voor boompje) verder veel mooi wit.

That I started [in the creation of his art] from my immediate environment was extremely important to me. Only the things I knew, with which I was familiar, which I had caught on their reality value, I could approach free of extra-pictorial aesthetics and pale romanticism. Of course the question remained how I - who wanted to involve modern life in my art - could continue to seek my inspiration at Machelen-aan-de-Leie, a village in the countryside, far from the city and the crowds. Where can one sense better the infiltration of modern life than in a village in the countryside? In the city everything gets integrated immediately, you can't see clearly the insulating and contrasting-alienating effect of publicity, the gas-station, the concrete, the car, etc. On the other hand, I keep saying that we must continue to see the grass, the corn and the cows. Not within an animistic unity, but from a mentality that has the courage to approach these things freely and ruthless in our era. What ordinary people make out of life is fascinating me.

[I have] all respect for that neoclassicism [of Piet Mondrian ], but it would sacrifices me too much to architecture. That kind of art does indeed fit perfectly in very modern rooms of modern buildings in equally modern cities, but never again a handcart can drive in there and never again someone can speak or think of a white dog cart in the fog. I am longing for a painting that can hang in a modern environment and still have its 'personal' life.