It’s so fine and yet so terrible
to stand in front of a blank canvas.
Painting is damned difficult –
you always think you’ve got it,
but you haven’t.
I could paint for a hundred years,
a thousand years without stopping
and I would still feel I knew nothing.
I allow no one to touch me.
Here, on the river’s verge,
I could work for months
without changing my place,
simply leaning a little to the right or left.
Everything in nature is colored.
We live in a rainbow of chaos.
The truth is in nature, and I shall prove it.
The day is coming
when a single carrot, freshly observed,
will set off a revolution.
With an apple I will astonish Paris.
I allow no one to touch me.
I have sworn to die painting.
Tell me, do you think I’m going mad?
From the words of Paul Cezanne
Linda Frye Burnham 2011