After all, we are not French and never can be, and any attempt to be so is to deny our inheritance and to try to impose upon ourselves a character that can be nothing but a veneer upon the surface.
I believe that the great painters with their intellect as master have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions.
The question of the value of nationality in art is perhaps unsolvable.
What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.
No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination.
If the picture needs varnishing later, I allow a restorer to do that, if there's any restoring necessary.
