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Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell Quotes

Painter

Robert Motherwell was an American painter known for his abstract expressionist works. His art often features black and white colors, filled with strong emotions and philosophical thoughts. Motherwell held a significant position in the 20th-century art world, and his works have had a profound impact on later artists.

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All Art Painting Abstract Ifs Paint Painter Art Is Artist Ends Modern Way Abstract Art Feelings Mediums Problem Subjects Certain Doe Wine World

Famous Robert Motherwell Quotes

“Abstract art is uniquely modern. It is a fundamentally romantic response to modern life - rebellious, individualistic, unconventional, sensitive, irritable.”

Art Modern Art Is Response Sensitive Abstract Rebellious Modern Life Unconventional Abstract Art Individualistic

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“Abstract expressionism was the first American art that was filled with anger as well as beauty.”

Firsts Wells Art Filled Abstract Expressionism Abstract Expressionism

Author:Robert Motherwell

“It is sometimes forgotten how much wit there is in certain works of abstract art. There is a certain point in undergoing anguish when one encounters the comic.”

Art Sometimes Certain Humour Forgotten Wit Comic Abstract Encounters Anguish Abstract Art

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“It is the medium, or the specific configuration of the medium, that we call a work of art that brings feeling into being.”

Art Feelings Mediums Works Of Art Being Me Configuration

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“For a hundred years, modern painters, stubbornly and in the face of incessant hostility, have moved, step by step, leaving superb monuments by the wayside, towards an art of arrangement whose expressiveness depends less and less upon its elements imitating the objects of the external world.”

World Years Art Faces Steps Modern Objects Depends Elements Hundred Moved Leaving Painter Arrangements Hostility Monument Modernism Imitating Superb Incessant

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“An odd contradiction, if the layman were correct in his unconscious assumption that an artist begins with reality and ends with art: the converse is true - to the degree that this dichotomy has any truth - the artist begins with art, and through it arrives at reality.”

Ifs Art Ends Reality Artist Degrees Odd Assumption Unconscious Contradiction Converses Dichotomy Layman

Author:Robert Motherwell

“One's art is just one's effort to wed oneself to the universe, to unify oneself through union.”

Art Universe Effort Art Is Unions Oneself Just One

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“The abstractness of modern art has to do with how much an enlightened mind rejects of the contemporary social order.”

Mind Art Order Social Modern Contemporary Enlightened Rejects Social Order Modern Art

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“Wherever art appears, life disappears.”

Art Artist Disappear Architecture Umpires

Author:Robert Motherwell

“Most painting in the European tradition was painting the mask. Modern art rejected all that. Our subject matter was the person behind the mask.”

Persons Art Matter Behinds Modern Subjects Painting Tradition Mask Rejected Subject Matter Modern Art

Author:Robert Motherwell

“A main part of the struggle of art has been to make an art that is direct, simple, humane, unconnected with powers that be in their essence... To the degree that it is connected with the bourgeoisie via the marketplace and so on is not necessarily an artist's problem.”

Has Beens Art Problem Artist Simple Struggle Degrees Direct Essence Connected Humane Marketplace Bourgeoisie

Author:Robert Motherwell

“Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.”

Life Art Important Poor Art Is Importance Painter Poor Life Art Appreciation

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“One of the most striking aspects of abstract art's appearance is her nakedness, an art stripped bare.”

Art Appearance Abstract Abstraction Abstract Art

Author:Robert Motherwell

“Nothing as drastic an innovation as abstract art could have come in to existence, save as the consequence of a most profound, relentless, unquenchable need. The need is for felt experience - intense, immediate, direct, subtle, unified, warm, vivid, rhythmic.”

Needs Art Felt Existence Consequence Direct Innovation Profound Warm Intense Abstract Subtle Vivid Relentless Unified Drastic Abstract Art

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“Art is an experience, not an object.”

Art Objects Art Is

Author:Robert Motherwell

“It's not that the creative act and the critical act are simultaneous. It's more like you blurt something out and then analyze it.”

Art Creativity Creative Like You Critical Simultaneous

Author:Robert Motherwell

“It may be that the deep necessity of art is the examination of individual's and society's self-deception.”

May Art Self Individual Art Is Deception Examination Self Deception

Author:Robert Motherwell

About the Author

Born: January 24, 1915
Died: July 16, 1991
Known for: Painter
Quotes: 54

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Books & Sources

The Collected Writings of Robert MotherwellRelated source material

Robert MotherwellRelated source material

Robert Motherwell on paper: drawings, prints, collagesRelated source material

Robert Motherwell: the Complete Prints 1940-1991: Catalogue RaisonneRelated source material

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