"Obviously, this Greek light, where only stone or marble resists radiation, is a great lesson in form. All things considered, neither Cézanne, nor Van Gogh, nor Bonnard used it other than as a psychic spur, I mean on a grand intimate level; they could have painted what they painted anywhere. The Greeks, no, it's total, their culture takes and renders the sun as it is impossible to do elsewhere in all its multiplicity... "Nicolas de Staël, June 1952