a later confession to his friend [art-teacher]; as quoted by , in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 76 - Emil Nolde

'The most perfect art was Greek art. Raphael is the greatest of all masters in painting'. Such were the doctrines of every art teacher only twenty or thirty years ago.

None of the free [ a.o. his first religious] imaginative pictures that I painted at this time [c.1909] or later, had any kind of model, or even a clearly conceived idea. It was quite easy for me to imagine a work right down to its smallest details, and in fact my preconceptions were usually far more beautiful than the painted outcome: I became the copyist of the idea. Therefore I liked to avoid thinking about a picture beforehand, all I needed was a vague idea of luminescences of colour. The work then developed of its own accord under my hands.

How glad I am to be almost alone as an artist among artists, with the whole swarm of artists somewhere else.