I saw Monet and Renoir at about the end of December; they had been on holiday in Genoa, in Italy. - Paul Cézanne

You can't ask a man to talk sensibly about the art of painting if he simply doesn't know anything about it. But by God, how can he [ Zola, his childhood friend who characterized Cezanne in L'Oeuvre] dare to say that a painter is done because he has painted one bad picture? When a picture isn't realized, you pitch it in the fire and start another one.

Maybe Delacroix stands for Romanticism. He stuffed himself with too much Shakespeare and Dante, thumbed through too much Faust. His palette is still the most beautiful in France, and I tell you no one under the sky had more charm and pathos combined than he, or more vibration of colour. We all paint in his language, as you all write in Hugo's.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to paint a nude here? [along the river near Aix ] There are innumerable motifs here on the banks of the river; the same spot viewed from a different angle offers a subject of the utmost interest. It is so varied that I think I could keep busy for months without changing my place, simply turning now tot the right and now to the left.