Henri Rousseau

“We are the two great painters of this era; you in the Egyptian style, I in the modern style.”

“I can't now change my style, which I've acquired, as you can imagine, by dint of labour.”

“Excuse my credulity, but I am what is called a primitive.”

“Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see.”

“When I go out into the countryside and see the sun and the green and everything flowering, I say to myself, 'Yes indeed, all that belongs to me!'”

“I had no other teacher than nature.”

“I am the inventor of the portrait-landscape.”

“It is not easy to paint, especially when you don't know how, but you can learn.”

“If I have been able to maintain my naivety, it's because I have always stayed close to nature.”