Auguste Rodin

« I can’t take it anymore, I can’t go a day without seeing you. Otherwise the atrocious madness […] All my soul belongs to you […] may my heart still feel your divine love spreading again. »(Letter from Auguste Rodin to Camille Claudel)

Roman Opałka

« I wanted to show time, its change in duration, the one that nature shows, but in a way specific to man, a subject conscious of its presence defined by death: emotion of life in irreversible duration. Arbitrary time of calendars, of clocks does not interest me. It erases itself by the repetition that defines it, only focalization of the present. » (Roman Opalka)

Cardwell Higgins

Cardwell Higgins. The circle of life 1920s

The circle of life. The perfect man and perfect woman, seeking one another in unison for the creation of the perfect child, with the protecting hand of the father and the supporting hand of the mother. The embodiment of father, mother and child is the total life. The sun, the supplier of the life-giving elements necessary for survival. The hourglass of time. The Evil influence that comes into their lives. The slowly burning candle of life. And the inevitable death!

Auguste Rodin

« I regret nothing. Nor the outcome which seems funereal to me, my life will have fallen into an abyss. But my soul had its flowering, alas late. I had to know you and everything took on an unknown life, my dull existence blazed in a bonfire. Thank you because it is to you that I owe all the share of heaven that I have had in my life. » (Letter from Auguste Rodin to Camille Claudel)

« Her silence is mine. Her eyes, mine. It is as if she had known me for a long time, as if she knew everything about my childhood, my present, my future; as if she was watching over me, guessing me from closer, although I see her for the first time. I felt that she was my wife. Her pale complexion, her eyes… These are my eyes, my soul…I have entered a new house, and I am inseparable from it. »
(Marc Chagall)

Jean Cocteau

« La minute m’a dit : « Presse-moi dans ta main ;
Tu ne sais aujourd’hui si tu seras demain ;
Ainsi prends tout le suc qui m’enfle comme une outre,
Ne tourne pas la tête et ne passe pas outre,
Vis-moi !…dans un instant, je serai du passé !
Mais tu ne sais peut-être au juste ce que c’est
Qu’étreindre dans ses bras la minute qui passe,
Si tu comprends la splendeur grave de l’espace
Qui te laissait jadis indifférent et froid,
Si tu sais accepter la douleur sans effroi,
Si tu sais jouir d’un très subtil parfum de rose,
Si pour toi le couchant est une apothéose,
Si tu pleures d’amour, si tu sais voir le beau
Alors suis sans trembler la route du tombeau.
Tu vivras de chansons, de splendeurs, de murmures,
Le chemin n’est plus long si l’on cueille ses mûres,
Et je suis près de toi la mûre du chemin ! »
La minute m’a dit : « Presse-moi dans ta main. »

(Jean Cocteau)

Marc Chagall

« Her silence is mine. Her eyes, mine. It is as if she had known me for a long time, as if she knew everything about my childhood, my present, my future; as if she were watching over me, guessing me from closer, although I see her for the first time. I felt that she was my wife. Her pale complexion, her eyes… These are my eyes, my soul…I have entered a new house, and I am inseparable from it. »

Auguste Rodin

« … sois assurée que je n’ai aucune femme en amitié, et que toute mon âme t’appartient…
Je suis déjà mort et je ne comprends plus le mal que je me suis donné pour des choses qui me sont si indifférentes maintenant…
Toi qui me donnes des jouissances si élevées, si ardentes, près de toi, mon âme existe avec force et, dans sa fureur d’amour…
Il a fallu que je te connaisse et tout a pris une vie inconnue, ma terne existence a flambé dans un feu de joie…
Merci car c’est à toi que je dois toute la part de ciel que j’ai eue dans ma vie… » (Lettre d’Auguste Rodin à Camille Claudel)

The snake woman of Nara from the Kaikidan Ekotoba Scroll around 1850

“The sun shines on the duality of day and night, and on eternal love. That which dies in modern man because he is like a potted plant on a balcony, never dies in me because my soul reaches to the other side of the earth, and my roots are infinite.” (Anais Nin)