“Sometimes I start in a very realistic fashion, and as I go on from one painting to another of the same kind, it becomes simplified until it can be nothing but abstraction.” KindSometimesFashionPaintingGoes OnRealisticRealismAbstraction Author:Georgia O'Keeffe
“Literature expresses itself by abstractions, whereas painting, by means of drawing and colour, gives concrete shape to sensations and perceptions.” GivingMeanLiteraturePaintingShapesPerceptionDrawingColourSensationsConcreteAbstraction Author:Paul Cezanne
“The paradox in the evolution of French painting from Courbet to Cezanne is how it was brought to the verge of abstraction in and by its very effort to transcribe visual appearance with ever greater fidelity.” EffortGreaterPaintingEvolutionAppearanceVisualsParadoxAbstractionFidelityVergeCezanne Author:Clement Greenberg
“I guess I have no motivation to make an abstract painting, even if they sometimes read as abstract. I think, with abstraction, it's easy to fall into a sort of pastiche.” IfsThinkingSometimesMotivationFallEasyPaintingAbstractAbstractionAbstract PaintingPastiche Author:Joe Bradley
“If a painting contains no abstraction nor impressionistic elements, it is a kite that will never fly. But if the painting completely breaks the connection between human feeling and the object portrayed, the kite string has been broken. I try to keep the line unbroken.” IfsTryingHumansHas BeensFeelingsLinesBreakObjectsPaintingBrokenElementsConnectionsStringsAbstractionUnbrokenKites Author:Wu Guanzhong
“The effort of painting from life has cost my models a great deal of physical discomfort, and cost me a great deal of money in model fees... I have wanted to make the camera obsolete... because, in my reading about early 20th century art, I found that the most frequently used argument made in favor of abstraction was that the camera made realist painting obsolete.” ArtMadeWantedUsedReadingFoundDealsEffortCenturyPaintingCostPhotographyModelsArgumentCamerasFavors20th CenturyAbstractionDiscomfortObsoleteRealistFees Author:Philip Pearlstein
“I have painted portraits that to me are almost photographic. I remember hesitating to show the paintings, they looked so real to me. But they have passed into the world as abstractions - no one seeing what they are.” WorldRealShowsRememberSeeingPaintingPortraitsAbstraction Book:Georgia O'Keeffe, Works on Paper: Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe Source: Georgia O'Keeffe, Works on Paper: Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe
“Abstraction in photography is ridiculous, and is only an imitation of painting. We stopped imitating painters a hundred years ago, so to imitate them in this day and age is laughable.” YearsAgePaintingPhotographyHundredYears AgoPhotographerRidiculousPainterThis DayImitationAbstractionImitatingLaughable Author:Berenice Abbott
“I have been interested in the dialogue of abstraction and modernist painting - and the rich history of the grid. I also think I have been influenced a bit by some of the particular qualities of the Bay Area. The weather and the atmosphere here is so exotic, like the fog rolling in and the nuanced differences in the quality of light.” ThinkingHas BeensLightBitsDifferencesQualityRichParticularPaintingAreasDialogueWeatherAtmosphereRollingFogAbstractionExoticGridsBay Area Author:Stephen Beal
“There are absences, but there are also presences. It's about how painting can evolve its own abstractions. I didn't know the painting was going to be about that, but it has to have that journey; I have to learn something, I have to end up somewhere I didn't expect to be, otherwise, I don't think it's painting.” ThinkingKnowsEndsJourneyPaintingAbsenceEvolveAbstraction Author:Nigel Cooke