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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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Famous Robert Motherwell Quotes

“I have been continuously aware that in painting, I am always dealing with... a relational structure. Which in turn makes permission 'to be abstract' no problem at all.”

Has Beens Problem Turns Painting Structure Abstract Permission No Problem

Author:Robert Motherwell

“Every picture one paints involves not painting others.”

Choices Painting Paint

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“In a way, painting is like wine: it is as old, as simple, as primitive and as varied. Like wine, it is a very specific means of expression, with a limited vocabulary, but vast in its expressive potential.”

Way Mean Simple Painting Expression Wine Primitive Vocabulary Expressive

Author:Robert Motherwell

“I almost never start with an image. I start with a painting idea, an impulse, usually derived from my own world.”

World Ideas My Own Painting Impulse My Own World

Book:Robert Motherwell

Source: Robert Motherwell

“I never had the... common anxiety as to whether abstract painting had a given 'meaning.”

Given Common Painting Anxiety Abstract Abstract Painting

Author:Robert Motherwell

“I started with straight, basic, symbolic structures. My problem now is the opposite; as I get older, I try to make my paintings more contrapuntal, richer.”

Trying Problem Painting Opposites Structure Symbolic

Book:Robert Motherwell

Source: Robert Motherwell

“Sometimes images may emerge from some chord in my subconscious, the way a dream might. Even in those paintings where an image unconsciously develops, a certain kind of experience is usually necessary in order to perceive it.”

Way Kind May Sometimes Dream Might Certain Order Painting Perception Perceive Subconscious Chords

Author:Robert Motherwell

“If one were to ask a painter what he felt about anything, his just response - though he seldom makes it - would be to paint it, and in painting, to find out.”

Ifs Would Be Asks Felt Painting Response Paint Painter

Author:Robert Motherwell

“Painting that does not radiate feeling is not worth looking at. The deepest-and rarest-of grown-up pleasures is true feeling.”

Doe Feelings Pleasure Painting True Feelings

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of 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

“Every intelligent painter carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head. It is his real subject, of which everything he paints in both an homage and a critique, and everything he says is a gloss.”

Real Whole Culture Modern Subjects Painting Intelligent Paint Painter Carrie Critique Homage Gloss

Author:Robert Motherwell

“Painting is a medium in which the mind can actualize itself; it is a medium of thought. Thus painting, like music, tends to become its own content.”

Mind Painting Mediums

Book:The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

Source: The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell

“In printmaking, I essentially use the same process as in painting with one important exception ... to try, with sensitivity to the medium to emphasize what printing can do best ... better than say, painting or collaging or watercolour or drawing or whatever ... Otherwise, the artist expresses the same vision in graphics that he does in his other work.”

Trying Doe Important Use Artist Process Can Do Vision Painting Drawing Mediums Exception Sensitivity Printing Printmaking

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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