Edvard Munch quotes offering insight into Munch’s perspective on art, nature, emotion, and the human condition.
“I paint not what I see, but what I saw.”
“The colours live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.”
“Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye… it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.”
“I do not believe in the art which is not the compulsive result of man’s urge to open his heart.”
“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow, and I am in them, and that is eternity.”
“Art comes from joy and pain, but mostly from pain.”
“A picture is just like me; the more you try to understand it, the more it hides from you.”
“My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art.”
“The camera cannot compete with the brush and canvas when it comes to capturing the soul.”
“What I am seeking is not the real and not the unreal but rather the unconscious, the mystery of the instinctive in the human race.”
