My object in painting pictures is to try and move the senses by giving an intensification of reality.
Whether this can be achieved depends on how intensely the painter understands and feels for the person or object of his choice.
Because of this, painting is the only art in which the intuitive qualities of the artist may be more valuable to him than actual knowledge or intelligence.
The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it was felt.
The painter must give completely free rein to any feelings or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn. It is just this self-indulgence which acts for him as the discipline through which he discards what is inessential to him and so crystallises his tastes.
A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.
Freud. "Some Thoughts on Painting," Encounter III, no. 1 (Julv 1954): 23-24.
