people-from-bordeaux

"We are looking to be more numerous, to gather more faithful for the Eucharist, to manifest more strongly the Catholic presence in our secularized societies. However, we cannot be satisfied by these quantitative perspectives. We are also called upon to a task of internal renewal of our Christian life."

"Richard II’s reign was a personal and political tragedy. As a ruler, he was rigid, inept, inconsistent, paranoid, untrustworthy and vindictive — yet he was also a refined patron of the arts and the boy king who bravely faced the terrifying rebellious mobs of the Peasants’ Revolt. Richard’s tragedy was to succeed to the throne as an unprepared, callow and foolish child in the shadow of his grandfather Edward III, one of the most heroic of English kings, and his father, the Black Prince, paragon of knighthood."

"You wretches detestable on land and sea: you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues: rustics you were, and rustics you are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity. However, we will spare your lives if you remain faithful and loyal. Choose now which course you want to follow."

"I am your leader: follow me."

"Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o’er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway, That, hush’d in grim repose, expects his evening prey."

"The pictures of Diaz are not landscapes, for the land is wanting; they are 'tree-scapes', and their poetry lies in the sunbeams which dance, playing around them. 'Have you seen my last [tree-] stem?' he would inquire of the visitors to his studio."

"In his landscapes the Spaniard [Diaz] betrays himself.. .Diaz has in him [the painter Theodore Rousseau ] a little of Fortuny. Beside the great genius wrestling for truth and the virile seriousness of Rousseau, beside the gloomy, powerful landscapes of Dupre, with their deep, impassioned poetry, the sparkling and flattering pictures of Diaz seem to be rather light wares. For him nature is a keyboard on which to play capricious fantasies. His pictures have the effect of sparkling diamonds, and one must surrender one's self to his charm without asking its cause; otherwise it evaporates. Diaz has, perhaps, too much of the talent of the juggler. It sparkles as in a magic kaleidoscope. 'You paint stinging-nettles, and I prefer roses', is the characteristic expression which he [Diaz] used to Millet."

"The coming on of winter was always dangerous to him. In 1876, Diaz felt himself attacked by an affection of the chest which rendered all work impossible. He went to Mentone, where for an instant he seemed to revive with a new existence. It was there that he executed his last pictures. Death took him by surprise, still at his work. It was impossible to overcome this character, still full of energy, during the final sickness, unless by taking the brush from his hands and shattering it."

"In the group of [ Barbizon school-]painters beyond the average, Diaz de la Pena is the great artist of the fantastical. Anything serves him as a pretext for bringing to light his marvelous aptitude as a colorist.. .He renders the enchantments of the landscape flooded with sunshine or the forest plunged in luminous twilight, with beams filtering through the thick leafage; he dazzles the eye with all the seductions of a grand colorist.. .He is the grand virtuoso of the palette, making sport of difficulties. With him everything is of the first impulse; his work is thrown off with brio; the enchantment of the color carries it along.."

"He [Diaz] was one of those who gave celebrity to the village of Barbizon, in the forest of Fontainebleau; he had lived there with Theodore Rousseau and Millet; with Rousseau especially, whom he considered the 'master'; in his private collection he [Diaz] had two enchanting little landscapes of his; and when you talked to Diaz of his own art, he would carry you off to the works of his great acquaintance, saying: 'Here are the bon-bons [the little landscapes of Rousseau]'."

"The sun has lost one of its most beautiful rays."

"Diaz de la Pena sets out from the principle that a palette is a picture. As for overall harmony M. Diaz thinks that you will invariably find it. Of draughtmanship – the draughmanship of movement, the draughmanship of the colourists – there is no question; the limbs of all his little figures behave for all the world like bundles of rags, or like arms or legs scattered in a railway accident. I would rather have a kaleidoscope... It is true that M. Diaz is a colourist; but enlarge his frame by a foot, and his strength will fail him, because he does not recognize the necessity for general color. That is why his pictures leave no memory behind them."

"You cannot imagine the pleasure you are giving me. This woman and this infant [of an old picture, made in his early years] are my own family. The baby was in its cradle one fine summer day; the mother had fallen asleep beside it. In one hour I did the sketch from nature. It used to hang over my bed, and it cheered my awakening every day for years. Then arrived a morning when we were more in want of necessaries than usual. A dealer came along and offered me a hundred and fifty francs.. ..he insisted on taking that one in particular. As ill luck would have it, my rent was due next day. I was not in a position to be too particular. He gave me a bank note of one hundred francs, and ten hundred-sous pieces. I made him out a receipt, and he never perceived that he was carrying off a bit of my heart. Ah!, it was hard."

"Your women bathing come from the cow house."

"You paint stinging-nettles, and I prefer roses."

"Patience ! They will come to it gradually! Rousseau has sold a landscape for five hundred francs; for my part, I have sold a view of Fontainebleau for seventy-five francs. And I am commissioned to ask you for companion sketches to your drawings. And this time, instead of twenty francs, they are to pay you twenty-five! (Millet replied resignedly: 'If I could only sell two drawings a week at that price all would go right!'"

"At last, here is a new man [ Millet ], who has the knowledge which I would like to have, and movement, color, expression, too, - here is a painter!"

"What does it matter! [poverty], One of these days I shall have carriages and a golden crutch. My brush will win them for me."

"From Theodore Rousseau, Diaz learned much of the technique of his trade, much of the secret of light and shade, and of the art of composition. In the matter of the use of the pigment, too, Rousseau gave Diaz much information, for he had made a study of the chemical properties of colour, a thing that had never occurred to Diaz, impetuous, unbridled enthusiast that he was. I have said elsewhere that Diaz at Barbizon, with the serious Rousseau working near him, turned his attention to a more sober interpretation of landscape, wherein he gave greater thought to form, tone, and construction. He studied trees, rocks, and gave greater attention to the relation of skies, distances, and foreground."

"Our first Salon des Independants, where I think we [Matisse and Marquet] were the only two painters to express ourselves in pure colors, was in 1901."

"..the Matisse of long ago, so alert, such a battler, always giving as good as he got."

"Let's leave the studio and go watch what moves.."

"I was certain that they [ Poussin's paintings which Marquet copied frequently in the 1880's] would never bore me."

"Painting, even if we call it bad, if it is what helps to keep someone alive, how can we condemn it?"

"I do not know how to write or speak but only to paint and draw. Look at what I have done. Whether I have succeeded in explaining myself or not, in any case, if you do not understand my work, through your fault or mine, I can do no more."

"When I draw, 1 am as pre-occupied before a gas-jet as before a human being."

"It is in working [= painting] that you will find yourself.."

"Over the course of the war I came to understand a lot. The Communists are right.. .It's terrible that many people haven't understood anything and want to return everything back.."

"..a certain burst of light and colour, so awkward and so clumsy.. ..[he also added: A principle of form and of design is the most important element to be found in [Marquet's work]."

"At work, he narrowed his eyes, closed one eye, then the other, taking advantage of the fact of not having the same vision in both, and then born up by a force which hardened his face and his glance, he appeared in all his singleness of purpose."

"..a sort of vengeful rage [Marcelle Marquette about Marquet's early street drawings."

"It was not his fault that what was exciting to him was of no interest to others, and if his timidity prevented him from explaining himself."

"The [Albert] Marquet of my youth [till c. 1904].. ..was a fighter, reliable, rock-steady, a sure companion."

"When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet - and vice versa... ...I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him."

"The colors, exceptionally violent, have cleared a well-known path.. ..Everything has gone according plan, as if expected. Everything except for the end result: a general effect that is, for Marquet, superb."

"Do you realize how sensitive Marquet is... ...do you see that he has suffered, and can you imagine how much. Have you noticed that he is easily bruised and that you will have to guess at his bruises because he will never say a word?"

"It has happened that I have begun a canvas in a brilliant tonality, going on to finish it in a grey notation. (1898)"

"I painted only [in pure colours] at Arcueil and at the Luxembourg Gardens."

"Henri Matisse and I were already working, before the 1900 Exhibition, as far back as 1898, in what was later to be called the Fauve style."

"[About the trauma of the cows when they are separated from their calves] By proceeding in this manner, you empty the world of both the mother and the very young animal; you provoke extremely intense suffering, true despair. These are not nociceptive pathways that are stimulated here, but mental representations that are affected. Both cow and calf have been deprived of what made sense for them."

"During the period in which the theory of phlogiston reached its zenith, four names stand out in bold relief. They are those of Joseph Black (1728–99), Henry Cavendish (1731–1810), Karl Wilhelm Scheele (1742–86), and Joseph Priestley (1733–1804). Of these men the last three were steadfast adherents of the theory, while Black seems to have been indifferent, devoting himself to his researches and placing his own interpretation upon his results."

"In the early part of my chymical studies, the author whose works made the most agreeable impression on my mind was Markgraaf of Berlin; he contrived and executed his experiments with so much chymical skill that they were uncommonly instructive and satisfactory; and he described them with so much modesty and simplicity, avoiding entirely the parade of erudition and self-importance, with which many other authors encumber their works, that I was quite charmed... and said to Dr. Cullen I would rather be the author of Markgraaf's Essays than of all the Chymical works in the library. The celebrated Reaumur's method of writing appeared to me also uncommonly pleasing. After 3 years spent with Dr. Cullen, I came to Edinburgh to finish my education in medicine. Here I attended the lectures of Dr. Munro, senr. and the other medical Professors, until the summer of the year 1754, when I received the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and printed my inaugural Dissertation De Humere Acido a Cibis Orto et Magnesia Alba."

"Most Honrd Sir Your most affectionate letter of the 8th Aprill shews you in such a light as must warm the heart of a son with the highest degree of gratitude and affection."

"Others in the pursuits after happiness or pleasure must commonly seek those sources of it which they cannot enjoy without some inconvenience to the rest of their fellow creatures; hence they have their imaginary happiness so much soured by Envy, Jealousy, or self-disapprobation that they find themselves dissappointed."

"Your happiness on the contrary is quite secure because you place it entirely in making others happy and doing those things to the utmost of your power which you can afterwards reflect upon with satisfaction. I must own your letter had that effect upon me that it made me apply to my work with double eagerness and alacrity with the hopes of being some time what you are at present."

"I am not yet installed into the order of the great wig, but have gone through all the examinations, & nothing is wanting but the ceremony, that has been put off by the Processors to wait for some others that are to be promoted along with me 6 days hence."

"In my last letter to you I proposed to go immediately to London to spend some time in the Hospitals there. I am now advised to put that off and remain here yet a while longer; & I must own the reasons for it are very strong quite unanswerable by me unless you disapprove of them. The following are the chief of them."

"I have now studied the Theory of medicine & have likewise been taught every thing upon the Practice which can be learned in a College. I have also seen some real Practice & have even practised a little myself. But all this is not enough."

"I should be thoroughly acquainted with the real Practice & this is a thing very different from what can be learned in a College; thus for instance we are taught by our Professors that if a sick person breaths with great difficulty, one thing must be done; if his respiration is yet more laborious, another. But how shall we judge of the nice degrees of laborious breathing unless from a dayly & familiar acquaintance with, & study of, the appearances and looks of Patients &c. Most young Physicians neglect this essential point of their art in their education & very often acquire it when they come to Practice at the expense of their patients' safety."

"I have not had time this last winter to apply to it sufficiently; tho I had the opportunities, my attention was too much taken up with some of the Colleges, preparing my Thesis, & recalling to my mind everything I had learned, on account of the examinations."