"Do you think it interests me that this painting represents two figures? These two figures existed, they exist no more. The sight of them gave me an initial emotion, little by little their real presence grew indistinct they became a fiction for me, then they disappeared, or rather, were turned into problems of all kinds. For me they are no longer two figures but shapes and colours, don't misunderstand me, shapes and colours, though, that sum up the idea of the two figures and preserve the vibration of their existence."

Source: Conversation avec Picasso. Interview with Christian Zervos, Cahiers d'Art, Volume X, No. 7-10 (pp. 173-178), 1935; later quoted in Richard Friedenthal Letters of the Great Artists From Blake to Pollock translated by Daphne Woodward (p. 258), 1963.