If the universal is the essential, then it is the basis of all life and art. Recognizing and uniting with the universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty.

Art is the path to being spiritual.

Reality manifests itself as constant and objective – independent of us, but as changeable in space and time. Consequently, its reflection in us contains both properties. Mixed up in our mind, these properties are confused and we do not have a proper image of reality.

The purer the artist’s ‘mirror’ is, the more true reality reflects in it. Overseeing the historical culture of art, we must conclude that the mirror only slowly is purified. Time producing this purifying shows a gradual, more constant and objective image of reality.

I hate everything approaching temperamental inspiration,’sacred fire’and all those attributes of genius which serve only as cloaks for untidy minds.

What is natural does not have to be a representation of something. I’m now working on a thing that is a reconstruction of a starry sky, and yet I’m making it without a given from nature. Someone who says he uses a theme from nature can be right, but also someone who says he uses nothing at all.

I don’t want pictures, I want to find things out.

All painting – the painting of the past as well as of the present – shows us that its essential plastic means were only line and color.

The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.

The emotion of beauty is always obscured by the appearance of the object. Therefore, the object must be eliminated from the picture.