If The World Really Looks Like That

I Am Pleased With The Exhibition... Everything On Display Was Sold For A Good Price To Decent People. It Has Been A Long Time Since I Believed That You Could Educate Public Taste.

One Is Too Taken Up With All That One Sees And Hears In Paris, However Strong One Is, And What I Do Here [in Etretat] Will At Least Have The Merit Of Being Unlike Anyone Else, At Least I Believe So, Because It Will Simply Be The Expression Of What I, And Only I, Have Felt.

It Is Difficult To Stop In Time Because One Gets Carried Away. But I Have That Strength; It Is The Only Strength I Have.

For Me, A Landscape Does Not Exist In Its Own Right, Since Its Appearance Changes At Every Moment; But The Surrounding Atmosphere Brings It To Life - The Light And The Air Which Vary Continually. For Me, It Is Only The Surrounding Atmosphere Which Gives Subjects Their True Value.

These Landscapes Of Water And Reflections Have Become An Obsession. It's Quite Beyond My Powers At My Age, And Yet I Want To Succeed In Expressing What I Feel.