Paula Modersohn-Becker Quotes

38 Sourced Quotes

I must learn how to express the gentle vibration of things, their roughened textures, their intricacies. I have to find an expression for that in my drawing, too, in the way I sketched my nudes here in Paris, only more original, more subtly observed. The strange quality of expectation that hovers over muted things [skin, Otto's Otto Modersohn forehead, fabrics, flowers]; I must try to get hold of the great and simple beauty of all that. In general, I must strive for the utmost simplicity united with the most intimate power of observation. That's where greatness lies.

Paula Modersohn-Becker
.. Mother, the dawn has broken in me and I can feel the day approaching. I'm going to become somebody. If only I had been able to show Father that my life has not been fishing in troubled waters, pointless; if only I had been able to repay him for the part of himself that he planted in me! I feel that the time is soon coming when I no longer have to be ashamed and remain silent, but when I feel with pride that I am a painter..

Paula Modersohn-Becker
I believe that one should not think about nature in painting pictures. At least not during the process of conceiving the image. An oil sketch should be made just according to the way one once felt something in nature. But my own personal feeling, that is the main thing. Once I have got that pinned down, clear in its form and color, only then do I introduce things from nature which will make my picture have a natural; effect, so that a layman will be totally convinced that I painted my picture from nature.

Paula Modersohn-Becker
How happy I would be if I could give figurative expression to the unconscious feeling that often murmurs so softly and sweetly within me.

Paula Modersohn-Becker
Recently I have felt just what the mood of colors means to me: it means that everything in this picture changes its local color according to the same principle and that thereby all muted tones blend in a unified relationship, one to the other.

Paula Modersohn-Becker
Last year I wrote: the intensity with which a subject is grasped, that is what makes for beauty in art. Isn't it also true for love?

Paula Modersohn-Becker
My art is going well. I have a feeling of satisfaction about it. Afternoons I stroll around the city [Paris] taking a good look at everything and trying to absorb it all... I went back to the Notre Dame again. Such wonderful Gothic detailing, those monstrous gargoyles, each one with its own character and face... Directly behind Notre Dame, almost encircled by the Seine, lies the morgue. Day after day they fish corpses from the river here, people who don't want to get on living.

Paula Modersohn-Becker
I am constantly observing things and believe that I am coming closer to beauty. In the last few days I have discovered form and have been thinking much about it. Until now I've had no real feeling for the antique. I could find it very beautiful by itself. But I could never find any thread leading from it to modern art. Now I've found it, and that's what I believe is called progress.

Paula Modersohn-Becker