Yes no (Francis Picabia, 1939)

YES

NO

YES

NO

YES

NO

Painting music literature
hothouse flowers
yes no

*

One must distrust
picturesque beings
one must distrust
antique-dealer painters
one must distrust
distrusting
even painting
painted without distrust

*

Serious people
have a faint odour
of carrion

*

Skepticism
cynicism
the infinite
what a fashionable spectacle
but nature
has a little declaration
to make to you my dear sir
it doesn't borrow fire
from the conflagration

*

Perhaps I made
painting sick
but what a pastime
to be doctor

tomorrow I am counting on painting
to be my doctor

*

Right from the start of my life
the public cast
its sentence on me

he's making fun of us

what has always amused me
is this public
who knows me
but doesn't know itself

*

I'm only working against my interests
I don't know any other way
of dealing with myself

*

The profound mediocrity
of painters
depresses me

*

Old mediocrities
are in fashion
new ones too

knowing my strength
I am tolerant of myself
and nothing more is forbidden

*

I experienced painting
as an object of passion
my paintings are acts of love
that's my way of working

*

My painting is a contradiction
between life and sleep

*

Success is a liar
the liar loves success

*

People want others to talk about them
because they're only interested in the people
whom others talk about
others hide behind
a mask
which they think they've chosen
seducer
seducer like...

*

Gestures are silent
they rely on noise
and noise relies on gestures

*

Those who like the sun
have no need of noise
all these poor idiots who think
that noise
can make them shine

*

People always talk
about little things
they cannot talk about great ones
their hearts being too small

*

For many people
happiness
lies in imitating

*

To understand everything
makes life monotonous
to love everything
without understanding
lots of people
understand that

*

Is the sky beneath
or above us
one has to guess
if you could see me
my smile would tell you

*

I love the sea
the mountains hide the stars
if only the sun could make
the mountains melt
like snow

*

I hate clouds
their ridiculous forms
they don't even have
the beauty of tigers
on their prey
these idiotic clouds
which live only on the sun
and spend their time
hiding it

*

Cats that look at birds
have eyes that meditate
birds that look at cats
have eyes that doubt
my own close
to think of miracles

*

In the near future fables
and lovely fairy tales
will come back into fashion

*

Only the contemplators
of constellations
can still
move us

*

Now if you like
let's talk about my painting
for I am perhaps
my own disciple

*