Painting is my medium for expressing my views on life, and, most of all, my attachment to life. Until 1916 those who inspired my work were Sagantini, Van Gogh, and lastly, Matisse. The 1914 war threw me out of the traditional ways I had been used to. Art lost it's halo.
In 1916 my work took a new turn. I lived then in Ascona and I painted in the expressionist manner. I realised that the desire for harmony and balance is inherent in art. In nature everything is of equal importance and interest. That is how those of my pictures came into being which are divided into squares. Every part was of equal importance. This period of "optical-equibalance" was the first stage along my own path since 1916.
In 1923 I was stimulated by Goethe's theory of colours to paint my prismatic pictures which constitute the light problems from my neo-Impressionist days before 1916. In 1926 i realised that physiologically we see only part of our surroundings clearly at a time. This problem interested me, and i painted several pictures with visual points. These pictures were the polar compliment to the 'equi-balance pictures.' There, no dominating section. Here, a section which dominated so strongly as to drive all else into the background.
Later i discovered nature again for myself. This experience was stronger than ever before and i realise that all problems were contained in nature. In times like ours, where everything is out of joint, where there exists no moral or economic stability, when everything is confused and chaotic, meditationo n the eternal laws of nature, seen from the optic point of view, is my salvation
Arthur Segal
