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Quote by Philip Guston

“Many works of the past complete what they announce they are going to do, to our increasing boredom. Certain others plague me because I cannot follow their intentions. I can tell at a glance what Fabritius is doing, but I am spending my life trying to find out what Rembrandt was up to.”

Quote by Philip Guston

Author

Philip Guston was an influential American painter known for his unique style and contributions to modern art. His works combined elements of Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism, showcasing profound emotions and complex themes. more

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“To paint is always to start at the beginning again, yet being unable to avoid the familiar arguments about what you see yourself painting.”

Painting Argument Paint Familiar Begin Again

Book:Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

Source: Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

“There are so many things in the world - in the cities - so much to see. Does art need to represent this variety and contribute to its proliferation? Can art be that free? The difficulties begin when you understand what it is that the soul will not permit the hand to make.”

World Needs Doe Art Soul Hands Cities Art Is Difficulty Variety Permit Proliferation

Book:Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

Source: Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

“Sometimes I scrape off a lot. You have on the floor, like cow dung in the field, this big glob of paint... and it's just a lot of inert matter, inert paint. Then I look back at the canvas, and it's not inert - it's active, moving and living.”

Looks Sometimes Matter Bigs Moving Fields Paint Active Cows Canvas Dissatisfaction

Author:Philip Guston

“It is the bareness of drawing that I like. The act of drawing is what locates, suggests, discovers. At times it seems enough to draw, without the distractions of color and mass. Yet it is an old ambition to make drawing and painting one.”

Enough Seems Color Painting Ambition Mass Draws Drawing Distraction Drawing And Painting

Book:The drawings of Philip Guston

Source: The drawings of Philip Guston

“Then you learn about composition, you learn about old masters, you form certain ideas about structure. But the inhuman activity of trying to make some kind of jump or leap, where , the painting is always saying, 'What do you want from me? I can only be a painting.' You have to go from part to part, but you shouldn't see yourself go from part to part, that's the whole point.”

Want Trying Kind I Can Ideas Whole Form Certain Education Painting Masters Activity Structure Leap Composition Inhuman

Author:Philip Guston

“The canvas you are working on modifies the previous ones in an unending, baffling chain which never seems to finish. What sympathy is demanded of the viewer? He is asked to 'see' the future links.”

Seems Chains Links Canvas Viewers Finishing Unending

Book:Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

Source: Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

“Where do you put a form? It will move all around, bellow out and shrink, and sometimes it winds up where it was in the first place. But at the end it feels different, and it had to make the voyage. I am a moralist and cannot accept what has not been paid for, or a form that has not been lived through.”

Feels Firsts Different Ends Sometimes Moving Form Accepting Wind Paid Shrinks Voyages Moralist

Book:Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

Source: Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

“Painting seems like impossibility, with only a sign now and then of its own light.”

Light Seems Painting Now And Then Impossibility

Book:Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

Source: Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

“I'm not interested in painting; I'm not interested in making a picture. Then what the hell am I interested in? I must be interested in this process.”

Process Interest Hell Painting Not Interested

Book:Philip Guston, 1975-1980: Private and Public Battles

Source: Philip Guston, 1975-1980: Private and Public Battles

“The things I felt... about certain painters of the past that... inspired me, like Cezanne and Manet... that complete losing of oneself in the work to such an extent that the work itself... felt as if a living organism was posited there on the canvas, on this surface... That's truly... the act of creation.”

Ifs Past Certain Felt Creation Masters Losing Inspired Oneself Surface Painter Canvas Organisms Living Organisms Cezanne

Author:Philip Guston