The first time I went to Paris to study it was in 1906. Therefore, it’s quite possible to understand that my art went through different phases. But I was never a realistic painter in the sense of the camera. Today I work on abstract paintings as well as on descriptive paintings – in its own way descriptive – and I would say that my style today differs quite positively from what I did in my younger days.
I [do] not any longer put together a few bunches of flowers and a few apples and napkins, like Cezanne did, and try to paint it in the way he did, which I did when I was a young artist. Today, sensations come to me either from the outside or from my inside world. To give you an example, I put my cushions on my bed one morning, that it should be a bit aired, and suddenly I felt that this is a fantastic sensation I have by looking at these funny shapes of these cushions, and I painted a picture which I call The Ghosts. When I started I didn’t know what [would] come out of it, but I had a definite sensation by looking at these pillows that there is something in it which is new and strange and different from the routine subject matter.
If I paint anything from purely imagination, I often don’t know what I am starting with. During the process of painting, slowly it develops into something which is stronger and stronger in my mind, and I can’t any longer escape from it to go to a definite and positive way.
