From : 'Quotes of Famous Artists'

...I know of no artist in history who was not ‘literary’ when it came down to it. Not a single one. And even if they don’t appear to be, I know of none and you at least don’t recall them, because there is nothing to recall… …Sometime or other I’d like to see a pure artist, but I didn’t even find one in France. Obviously the trouble is that one approaches painting from the other side, so that the word sujet conceals the point of the thing. Yet even the most beautiful and emptiest sujet (an apple, a grape or any non-figurative painting) doesn’t help if there are no foundations, either innate or acquired through hard work… …Why don’t we say clearly: That is freedom, and this is commitment to the subject and to each tree its berries, but let it be a tree and not a donkey… ~(Marc Chagal).