We cleave to the past too much in Germany. All of our German art is too bogged down in the conventional… I think more highly of a free person who consciously puts convention aside.
I believe that one should not think so much about nature when painting, at least not during the conception of the picture. Make the color sketch exactly as one has felt something in nature. But my personal feeling is the main thing. Once I have established it, lucid in tone and color, I must bring in from nature the things that make my painting seem natural, so that a layman will only think that 1 have painted it from nature.
.. to have all colors deeper, more intense; |I| get quite angry at this lightness..