guston
Oh Kayla, you've" saved" me. It sums us SO MUCH for me. "Thanks" is not enough.
quotes
I'm also grateful to JoanneDorel for referring me (us) to a book by David Carrier (The Aesthete in the City). In it Carrier says what I need to hear:
"The greatest American artistic tradition, abstract expressionism, provides the basis for an on-going tradition of abstract painting, a rich system whose potential has not yet been exhausted."
In the US with the looming threat of censorship, Camus is relevant:
Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others. ~ Albert Camus
"No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy."--Pablo Picasso
"Is it really about the money, or are you leaving for some other reason? Don't be a dumb sh*t."
I've never heard anything more inspiring, honestly.
-Kayla
(I hope she doesn't mind, but she's so darn funny, I can't help but love her)
quotations
A good source of quotations is the catalog of Cheap Joe's Art Stuff. For example:
"The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life."
How fortunate are we lovers and creators of art.
The aim off art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle
Wow, such wonderful quotes everyone brings here.
great quote by Aristotle Joanne
Paul Klee: "a work of art must narrate something that does not appear within it's outline. The objects and figures represented in it must likewise poetically tell you of something that is far away from them and also of what their shapes materially hide from us..."
I always liked this one from John Sloan: "The object of painting a picture is not to make a picture--however unreasonable this may sound. The picture, if a picture results, is a by product and may be useful, valuable, interesting as a sign of what has passed. The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. In such moments activity is inevitable, and whether this activity is with brush, pen, chisel, or tongue, its result is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state...These results...are likewise interesting because they are to some extent readable and reveal the possibilities of greater existence."
Interesting, the Sloan quote. And today I ran across a quote from Robert Henri, who was in the Eight as well:
"The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable." This was the lead in to a newsletter piece from the local Redwood Art Association.
quotes
A quote from Bill Cosby applies to art making: "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."
"All art is Erotic"
-Adolf Loos
"I have told myself a hundred times that painting-that is to say, the material thing called painting-was no more than the pretext, the bridge between the mind of the painter and that of the spectator." -Eugene Delacroix
" I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday, as I thought of it, as I remembered all the things from childhood on through the years, good ones, and unpleasant ones, that his how they come, and that is how we have to take them."
-Grandma Moses
quote
I like Bluxx' selection of Adolf Loos' notion that "all art is erotic." It would seem that this relates to Freud's notion of sublimation of libido, the basis of civilization (and, of course, art). I see this in La Rouchefoucauld's dictum that "the best thing about sex is walking upstairs."
this is intersting...from Thomas Cole, 1838:
"...Those who purchase pictures are, many of them, like those who purchase merchandise: they want quantity, material--something to show, something palpable--things, not thoughts."
JL...is the BEST thing about sex walking up the stairs? What have I been missing? maybe in France; but I always thought it was the chocolate binge afterwards
quote
Colorific, yes that too: walking downstairs to the chocolate bowl.
quote
It seems that Thomas Cole anticipated my objection to purely conceptual art. Paintings, sculptures, great architecture, are sacred THINGS.
John Hewitt was an Irish poet and also worked at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery until, in 1957, he was appointed as Art Director of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry.
Each one of these is an edifying quote, I particularly like "Sculpture Lasts" and "Reproductions are referential data for students"! Too true!!!
Notes on the Art of Picture Buying
by John Hewitt
Never buy a picture because it reminds you of a place where you once
spent an enjoyable holiday. A photograph is cheaper.
Buy pictures to feed your soul, as Hafiz** nearly said.
Avoid the derivative repetitive artist. If he's not perpetually enriching
his own experience he can't possibly enrich yours.
If an artist solves your imaginative or aesthetic problems you ought
to solve his financial problems.
Reproductions are referential data for students.
Wouldn't you like to have been the first to buy a Monet or a Matisse?
Take a chance now!
What was good enough for your father is just too bad.
Buy a picture before its painter becomes famous.
Sculpture lasts.
Have something in your house made by a human being for a human
being.
________
** Who is Hafiz? A poet!
http://www.david.williamson.dial.pipex.com/Hafiz/hafiz.shtml
