“His method consists in sanctifying mistakes. It is through mistakes that man escapes from idle obedience to a code. If he is strong enough, the mistake will cease to be a mistake and will become an example. Hence the revulsion of the many who would rather recognise than know. To recognise is easy. To know demands an effort of the eyes and the mind, a long effort of study.

Few people will admit that what a Realist picture represents is as strange to see as a Cubist picture, or that it presupposes an ancestral habit of which the organism is not aware.
That is what made Picasso say to a visitor who had confessed that he ‘did not understand him’ and who later showed him a photograph of his wife: ‘ Oh how small she is! I suppose it’s so that she can fit into your pocket.’”

Jean Cocteau.

“At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.”

VVG