I want to give something [a painting to museum The Luxembourg in Paris, c. 1910] I can't be sure of doing again. I could do ten more nudes like that … - Pierre-Auguste Renoir

You know how I feel painting a skin which won't take the light well. And on top of that, it was fashionable at the time for women to be pale, so Madame de Bonnieres was as pale as wax, you may be sure. I kept saying to myself 'If only she could get a good steak inside her, just once!'.. ..and her hands! She put them in water before the sitting, to accentuate their whiteness.. .Just imagine! I come across one of the most charming women it is possible to meet, and she doesn't want to have any colour in her cheeks!

I wanted to tell you that in about 1883 there occurred a kind of break in my work. I had got to the end of 'Impressionism', and I had come to the conclusion that I didn't either how to paint or how to draw. In short, I had come to a dead end.

Give me that palette.. ..those two woodcocks.. ..turn this one's head to the left.. ..give me back my palette.. ..I can't paint that beak.. ..Quick, some paint.. ..change the position of those woodcocks...