There is only one kind of painting: landscape. It is the most difficult. It has also, I believe, the most simple kind of composition. Because no one … - André Derain

The Japanese see things that way. They don't paint sunlight, they don't cast shadows that perplex one and falsify the true shape of things. The Egyptian figures have simplicity, dignity, directness, unity; they express motion almost as if by a conventional formula, like writing itself, so direct it is. So I seek a logical method of rendering my idea.

I have found a boat, small with two sails, that would make me happy. Unfortunately, I need one hundred francs.. ..and I haven't got it! If you want, I could give you two canvases which you could sell, just to make you some many and you could give me the hundred francs.. .Kahnweiler [Paris' art-dealer] is the only one who gives me money, and just what we need to live on.

If I paint a girl in the sunlight, it's the sunlight I am painting, not the real girl; and even for that I should have the sunlight on my palette. I don't care for an accidental effect of light and shade, a thing of 'mere charm'.