If Painting Weren't So Difficult, It Wouldn't

People Call Me The Painter Of Dancing Girls. It Has Never Occurred To Them That My Chief Interest In Dancers Lies In Rendering Movement And Painting Pretty Clothes.

A Picture Is A Thing Which Requires As Much Knavery, As Much Malice, And As Much Vice As The Perpetration Of A Crime. Make It Untrue And Add An Accent Of Truth.

Art Is Really A Battle.

And Even This Heart Of Mine Has Something Artificial. The Dancers Have Sewn It Into A Bag Of Pink Satin, Pink Satin Slightly Faded, Like Their Dancing Shoes.

I Have Been, Or Seemed, Hard With Everyone Because I Was Carried Away By A Sort Of Brutality Born Of My Distrust In Myself And My Ill-humor. I Have Felt So Badly Equipped, So Soft, In Spite Of The Fact That My Attitude Towards Art Seemed To Me So Just. I Was Disgusted With Everyone, And Especially Myself.