The Stronger And More Intense

I Hardly Need To Abstract Things, For Each Object Is Unreal Enough Already, So Unreal That I Can Only Make It Real By Means Of Painting.

Often, Very Often, I Am Alone. My Studio In Amsterdam, (beckmann Lived In The Center Of Amsterdam During World War 2.) An Enormous Old Tobacco Storeroom Is Again Filled In My Imagination With Figures From The Old Days And From The New, Like An Ocean Moved By Storm And Sun And Always Present In My Thoughts. Then Shapes Become Beings And Seem Comprehensible To Me In The Great Void And Uncertainty Of The Space Which I Call God.

If You Wish To Get Hold Of The Invisible You Must Penetrate As Deeply As Possible Into The Visible.

Painting Is A Very Difficult Thing. It Absorbs The Whole Man, Body And Soul, Thus Have I Passed Blindly Many Things Which Belong To Real And Political Life.

It Is, Of Course, A Luxury To Create Art And, On Top Of This, To Insist On Expressing One's Own Artistic Opinion. Nothing Is More Luxurious Than This. It Is A Game And A Good Game, At Least For Me; One Of The Few Games Which Make Life, Difficult And Depressing As It Is Sometimes, A Little More Interesting.