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18 November 1944

Anybody with conviction and hard work can reach a certain point, but to become a really fine painter you have to go beyond that. The man who can get over that hump and go on forever has to be born with something not everyone has. Others, who are merely good artists, get stuck holding on to their position, because they realize they are getting older, and dare not take any chances, in case it might not work out as they wished. They try to hold on to the particular point of their success, and to repeat what they did before. Naturally, their work is never any better than it was in their younger days, first because they have less vigor, and then because nobody can repeat the same things. That is going backwards, and the results are always worse. 

You see these painters everywhere, and it is pathetic, because when we all started out to be painters we all felt that art was our life work, and gave up everything for one goal - to be a master. But maybe one in a century will get there, the others fall down on the way like rotten apples.

I think I know my own capacity, and I don't foolishly think that I am better equipped than others, but at least what I can do, and what I am doing now, is moving from one thing to another. I never sit still for a moment. I try to exercize my ideas. I have taken chances so far, and I will continue to tkae chances. Perhaps this means that I will never have material comfort or popular acclaim, but I will never stop doing this, because this is my belief. Even though I may never reach the point I dream of, I am happier this way, because I am doing what I want to do.