It was too idealistic as I was painting it, and it did not make me feel that I was able to express the emotions that I had. I started it in total grief without honoring the entire process of life. To me it did a disservice.

This was your grief over the death of your friend?

Yes. It was totally inadequate to convey the feelings I had of the entire experiences of life and of the life that he had led.

It is said that, as a young man, you were inspired by the work of Courbet, Manet, and Toulouse-Lautrec. What did you take from their art and make your own?

Freedom! Freedom to do what the heart chooses to do. Also it was the energy they put into their paintings. Each one of those artists had a way to take and to capture not a flat surface but the energy of what was going on. Whether it was the energy of flowers growing in a lily pond or the energy of dancers and of human experiences, I took from them the energy of life.

Historians talk about various periods in your painting: The Blue Period was characterized by the use of a blue palette and subjects including prostitutes and beggars. Then after four years the Rose Period with light colors, pink, blue, beige, and rose, and a change of subject to harlequins and clowns —circus people. What was in your mind when making such a change of course?

This was the changing course of my thinking and experimenting. The Blue Period was a time of melancholy and depression for me. It was a time when I was considering what might be seen as the negative aspect of humanity—how badly one person could treat another, and the angst they would carry with them out of such an experience. In the backgrounds of my Blue Period, within the intermingling of the blues, there was that which created a boiling, twisting, roiling energy that took a person and said, “If you want to experience the deepest interactions that can be had in humanity, jump in and join me. You will experience sadness, you will experience depravation, you will experience the dark side of human life.”