Traduction parue dans le catalogue anglais de l’exposition « Nicolas de Staël en Provence » à l’Hôtel de Caumont (Aix-en-Provence) : Nicolas de Staël in Provence, Yale University Press, 2018
« Coming ever closer to the vision within us. To create is to struggle towards a pacification. The light is so strong it magnetises. Influences the movement of life. The becoming of his palette. ‘You do not paint what you see, but the shock that you feel.’ Of course, you must not lose that capacity to be ‘shocked’. One must preserve that grace of being touched deep within, of feeling the foundations of matter stirring there. This intense receptiveness which makes you convert the object of the gaze into an inner call. When success hit, his healthy reaction was to step away from it. To not let himself be dazzled. The wave would carry you too far from what you are seeking… »