HERBIN
Landscape
of a world, the flags of all countries add their color to that given by your sky, your waters, and your painted craft of every size.
I absorb these impressions. I am in no hurry to put them on canvas. I let them remain in my brain, and then when the spirit of creation is at flood-tide, I improvise my pictures as a musician improvises music. The harmonies of my studies grow and take form under my brush, as the musician’s harmonies grow under his fingers. His music is from his brain and his soul just as my studies are from my brain and soul. Is this not clear to you?
You say all this cannot be done.
That is precisely the question, and one thing certain, it cannot and will not be done, unless some one tries to do it.
It is just as legitimate to attempt to express one’s emotions by the use of line and color as by the use of sound as in music, or by the use of motion as in pantomime.
One man says, “I will paint the portrait of a beautiful woman.”