Reflections on Painting, by Jacques Villon (1950)
We paint to discover ourselves, to explain our deepest nature. Obviously subject-matter has always been seen as a mere pretext by the enlightened onlooker, but all the same, even the enlightened onlooker is drawn in spite of himself toward the subject. Subject matter is important on the literal side, if one may say so, rather than on the literary side.
It is important because it allows an indirect approach to a marvellous and unknown world. Because the painter makes his choice out of whatever moves him the most and most stirs his deepest responses…
Les peupliers /Potager à la Brunié, 1941
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