..so before I died I wanted to paint a large canvas that I had worked out in my head, and all month long I worked [on Tahiti] day and night at fever … - Paul Gauguin

At an exhibition in London, one sagacious critic wrote: 'Monsieur Degas seems a good pupil of Nittis!' Doesn't this reflect that mania which men of letters have for squabbling in court over who had a given idea first? And the mania spreads to painters who take great care of their originality.

In order to produce something new, you have to return to the original source, to the childhood of mankind.

It takes very little to bring about a woman's fall, but you have to lift the whole world in order to lift her.