Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within.
Something in me knows where I’m going, and - well, painting is a state of being. ... Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.
I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge.
The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state and attempt to point out the direction of the future - without arriving there completely
It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.
A method of painting is a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.
On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.
If people would just look at the paintings, I don't think they would have any trouble enjoying them. It's like looking at a bed of flowers, you don't tear your hair out over what it means.
Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.
When I'm painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only after a get acquainted period that I see what I've been about. I've no fears about making changes for the painting has a life of its own.
It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture. Each age find its own technique.
I've been thinking of death a lot, and I am amazed by its inevitability, frightened, as we all are, of the totally unknown, and yet feel a long sleep is somehow earned by those of us who live on the edge.
I've had a period of drawing on canvas in black - with some of my early images coming thru -, think the non-objectivists will find them disturbing - and the kids who think it simple to splash a 'Pollock' out.
I don't work from drawings and colour sketches into a final painting. Painting, I think, today - the more immediate, the more direct - the greater the possibilities of making a direct - of making a statement.
Technic is the result of a need new needs demand new technics total control denial of the accident States of order organic intensity energy and motion made visible memories arrested in space, human needs and motives acceptance
I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added.
All cultures have had means and techniques of expressing their immediate aims - the Chinese, the Renaissance, all cultures. The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves.
When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.
New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements... the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture.
Energy and motion made visible – memories arrested in spaceTechnic is the result of a need new needs demand new technics total control denial of the accident States of order organic intensity energy and motion made visible memories arrested in space, human needs and motives acceptance.
Well, painting today certainly seems very vibrant, very alive, very exiting. Five or six of my contemporaries around New York are doing very vital work, and the direction that painting seems to be taken here - is - away from the easel - into some sort, some kind of wall, wall painting.
Most of the paint I use is a liquid, flowing kind of paint. The brushes I use are more a sticks rather than brushes – the brush doesn’t touch the surface on the canvas, it’s just above [so] I am able to be more free and to have greater freedom and move about the canvas, with greater ease.
The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world - in other words - expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.
Well, method is, it seems to me, a natural growth out of a need, and from a need the modern artist has found new ways of expressing the world about him. I happen to find ways that are different from the usual techniques, which seems a little strange at the moment, but I don't think there's anything very different about it. I paint on the floor and this isn't unusual - the Orientals did that.
Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age we’re living in. All cultures have had means and techniques of expressing their immediate aims – the Chinese, the Renaissance, all cultures. The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source, they work from within.
The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world - in other words - expressing the energy , the motion and the other inner forces ... the modern artist is working with space and time , and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.
With experience it seems to be possible to control the flow of paint, to a great extent, and I don't use - I don't use the accident - 'cause I deny the accident... it's quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them. I do have a general notion of what I'm about and what the results will be. I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it's direct.
When I am in a painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc, because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.
The idea of an isolated American painting , so popular in this country during the thirties, seems absurd to me, just as the idea of a purely American mathematics or physics would seem absurd... And in another sense, the problem doesn't exist at all; or, if it did, would solve itself: An American is an American and his painting would naturally be qualified by the fact, whether he wills or not. But the basic problems of contemporary painting are independent of any one country.