Édouard Pignon

Art is not cumulative, additive. One cannot say that one picks up Matisse and carries on. Matisse said all there was to say about Matisse. He did open certain doors, but he said all there was to say in his own creative work. One cannot say that one takes Picasso and is going to continue him. That is impossible. He gives some direction, but you have to start all over again.

The artist is not a destroyer, he is a builder. In other words, art takes a positive position; otherwise, there is no art.

There is no law that determines whether a painting has been completed or not. There is the artist's evidence. The esthetic of the times is something quite profound that has nothing to do with taste. It is a different understanding of the world.

One engages in the art of the present, not of the future.

When I speak of nature, I am not speaking just of forests, animals, and grass, but also of people's work and thought processes. What one thinks is part of nature, part of the world.

What can you gain in a single lifetime? Nothing better than the desire to fight.

Looking at things will always be different. To say that the forms of this world have been exhausted makes no sense. It is an idealistic position that may bear some fruit, like certain nihilist ideas in the past. But with no vital force.

Truth is what the canvas says. It is not only intentions. Intentions are true only if they are realized.

When material alone guides the artist, that's not good. The artist must dominate materials. His role is to make something rare out of this material, because the mind takes possession of it. Materials in themselves are nothing. Whether it is plastic or gouache or watercolor, materials are at the service of what the artist wishes to say. One can be a perfect "traditionalist," or even less than a "traditionalist," and yet use ultramodern materials.

The artist does not know what he is doing. He wants to attain something he vaguely perceives. He works his way toward a solution.

More than anything else, there is the question of work, of people who are capable of carrying a heavy workload more easily than others because they have learned how to work, and because, for them, work is a necessity.

It is a question of knowing at first. That's the hardest part.