The inner drama of man

It is not what the artist does that counts. But what he is. Cézanne would never have interested me if he had lived and thought like Jaques-Emile Blanche, even if the apple he had painted had been ten times more beautiful. What interests us is the anxiety of Cézanne, the teaching of Cézanne, the anguish of Van Gogh, in short the inner drama of the man. The rest is false.

– Pablo Picasso, 1934

Cited in: Friedenthal, Richard (trans. Daphne Woodward) (1963) Letters of the Great Artists – from Blake to Pollock. London: Thames and Hudson, p.259.

 

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