Painting Constantly Appeared To Me As The

I Am Working Here (in Amsterdam) On My Last Big Triptych, Which Will Be A Tremendous Story, And Which Gives Me A More Intense Life And Exhilaration. My God, Life Is Worth Living!

The World Is Rather Shot To Pieces [end Of World War Ii - 1945], But The Spectators Climb Out Of Their Caves And Pretend To Have Again Become Normal And Customary Humans Who Ask Each Other's Pardon Instead Of Eating One Another Or Sucking Each Other's Blood. The Entertaining Folly Of War Evaporates, Distinguished Boredom Sits Down Again On The Dignified Old Overstuffed Chairs.. .may I Report About Myself That I Have Had A Truly Grotesque Time, Brim-full With Work, Nazi Persecutions, Bombs, Hunger, And Again And Again Work - In Spite Of Everything [a. O. Using His Bed Sheets As Canvas For The New Paintings].

Space, And Space Again, Is The Infinite Deity Which Surrounds Us And In Which We Are Ourselves Contained.

It Was So Wonderful Outside That Even The Wild Senselessness Of This Enormous Death, Whose Music I Hear Again And Again, Could Not Disturb Me From My Great Enjoyment!

As A Painter, Cursed Or Blessed With A Terrible And Vital Sensuousness, I Must Look For Wisdom With My Eyes. I Repeat, With My Eyes, For Nothing Could Be More Ridiculous Or Irrelevant Than A 'philosophical Conception Painted Purely Intellectually Without The Terrible Fury Of The Senses Grasping Each Visible Form Of Beauty And Ugliness.