"website of Roger Raveel Museum"

“..I don't want to be a preacher who tries to improve the world according to his own opinion. For that I put too much in perspective in my thinking and perhaps I am more independent. I do not start from a reflex on tradition and on social and political structures but rather from a continual and fresh scanning for the essence of things.”

“Hugo, Now you should see my recent works. A drawing in ink, three pencil drawings and two sketches in oil-paint: a still-life and a landscape in the strongest colors you can imagine. I still have to work on the landscape, but I really think it will be the best of my paintings till now.. ..but the happiest thing is, I have acquired much more freedom.”

“The terrible beautiful Life.”

“As far as my exhibition concerned .. ..there is however a recent and important painting hanging there 'Man met Boompje' - permettez-moi - with beautiful refracting matters and color: lemon-yellow spots and lacquerish black on white, transparent pure light-blue with a very thin layer glacis over it and strong-blue painted vertical line. Yellow brown and mauve brush-sweeps with small red dashes over it , and further a lot of beautiful white.”

“all respect for that neoclassicism , but it would sacrifices me too much to architecture. That kind of art does indeed fit perfectly in very modern rooms of modern buildings in equally modern cities, but never again a handcart can drive in there and never again someone can speak or think of a white dog cart in the fog. I am longing for a painting that can hang in a modern environment and still have its 'personal' life.”

“The city offers certainly advantages, I agree. But I think that they do not outweigh the direct, unadulterated inspiration of the natural life that I find here .”