Creativity Quote by Raoul Dufy

The bravado here isn’t anti-intellectual; it’s anti-bureaucratic. Dufy frames “system” and “laws” as stage furniture: useful for rehearsal, ridiculous once the curtain goes up. That metaphor matters. A “prop” is something you lean on until you don’t, an object designed to look solid while remaining lightweight. He’s admitting that rules have value, then stripping them of authority at the only moment that counts: “the hour of creation.”

Coming from a painter who moved through Fauvism’s color shocks and modernism’s churn, the line reads like a manifesto against academic obedience and a defense of speed, appetite, and risk. Dufy’s work often feels buoyant, even effortless, but that surface ease depends on a practiced hand. The subtext is less “I’m free of discipline” than “my discipline is portable.” Systems are scaffolding; once you can stand, you kick them away.

The phrasing also pushes back on the romantic myth of inspiration as pure accident. He doesn’t deny preparation; he relocates it. Laws can be “laid down,” codified, taught, repeated. Creation, by contrast, arrives as an “hour” - singular, pressurized, and time-bound. In that compressed window, fidelity to method becomes a form of cowardice: choosing safety over surprise.

Dufy’s intent is to protect the artist’s right to violate the very lessons that trained them. It’s an argument for responsiveness - to the canvas, to the moment, to the problem in front of you - over loyalty to any pre-approved style of thinking.