And as I hadn´t been in the abbey for a long time, as I had seen people and cities, collections of paintings and galleries, as I had hiked through the alps, back and forth quite often, I said: Shouldn´t it be possible for me to paint the Dachstein the way I have constantly seen the mountain from the front Gosausee? Why does everybody paint him in another way? What causes such a fact? I do want to see it. And I tried ten and more times. I failed again and again. I was so desperate on the ability of drawing the Dachstein so faithful and beautiful as he is, that i one said: I want to build myself a little cottage at the shore of the front Gosausee opposite of the Dachstein and with a wall made of and then I won´t leave my cottage until I haven´t been able to draw the Dachstein in such a way that you won´t be able to see which mountain is the real mountain.
So a friend of mine who was a rogue, actually: “Then you will have lived and painted in the cottage for fiftyseven years. The issue will get public, the newspapers will write about it, travellers will come by, Britains will sit in hights and will look down upon your cottage with binoculars. Friends will equip you with the necessary and when the fiftyseven years are over , you will die, we will burry you and the cottage will be stuffed with unsuccessful paintings of the Dachstein.“
He could have been right with the failure; but I didn´t build the cottage and I didn´t paint any Dachstein pictures any more; but I had bought myself the colors, the sun umbrella, the paintbox and the camp stool and so I continued painting. Painting is more important for me than the whole world; There´s nothing on earth that could touch me more than creating paintings. When the morning dawns, I wake up and am eager to express in colors. When evening comes I think of where the day has brought me or where it has left me and paint further in my thoughts.
I´m a lot different compared to other artists. The rogue wouldn´t have experienced the situation of my cottage stuffed with unsuccessfully painted Dachstein mountains. I burn every piece of art I dont like. The really unsuccessfully painted Dachstein pictures were burned. I couldn´t bear to look at them and I didn´t have any peace as long as they existed.
And for this reason, if I wouldn´t have reached my goal by then, there would only be plenty of ashes in my cottage. Well some friend would say: „I beg you, so you don´t like your work, I do: You should rather give it to me than burning it. That´s nonsensical. Nobody can be delighted by a burned painting.“

text abstracted from:

Adalbert StifterNachkommenschaften (descendants)

Eine Erzählung
insel Taschenbuch
ISBN 3-458-34115-3