I sketched a young mother with her child at her breast, sitting in a smoky hut. If only I could someday paint what I felt then. A sweet woman, an ima… - Paula Modersohn-Becker

Mornings I am painting Clara Rilke in a white dress. It's to be her head and part of a hand holding a red rose. She looks very beautiful that way, and I hope that I am getting a little of her into my portrait. Her little girl, Ruth is playing next to us. She is a cuddly little creature. I'm happy that I can get together frequently with Clara Rilke this way. In spite of everything she is still, of all my friends, the one I care about the most. She was living very close to Rodin for about a month.. .As Rodin's secretary Rilke [Clara's husband] is gradually meeting the intelligentsia of Europe.
Otto paints and paints and paints..

I feel an inner relationship which leads from the antique tot the Gothic, especially from the early ancient art, and from the Gothic to my own feeling for form. A great simplicity of form is something marvelous. As far back as I can remember, I have tried to put the simplicity of nature into the heads that I was painting or drawing. Now I have a real sense of being able to learn from the heads of ancient sculpture..

This past summer I realized that I am not the sort of woman to stand alone in life. Apart from the eternal worries about money, it is precisely the freedom I have had which was able to lure me away from myself. I would so much like to get to the point where I can create something that is me. It is up to the future to determine for us whether I'm acting bravely or not. The main thing now is peace and quiet for my work, and I have that most of all when I am at Otto Modersohn's side.