“I shall never forget what I saw at the Museum of Modern Art: in a spotless schoolroom, fifty little girls painting away at tables covered with brushes, pots, tubes, bowls, staring into space and sticking out their tongues like the clever animals that ring a bell, tongues lolling and eyes vague. Teachers supervise these young creators of abstract art and slap their wrists if what they paint represents something and dangerously inclines toward realism. The mothers - still at the Picasso stage - are not admitted.” IfsLittlesArtStillsEyeYoungMotherGirlSpaceForgetAnimalSawsTeacherModernStagePaintingTablesPaintCreatorTongueRingsCleverStaringAbstractFiftyNever ForgetCoveredMuseumsPotBellsRealismBowlsVagueBrushesModernismSlapTubesWristsModern ArtInclineAbstract ArtSticking OutStaring Into Space Author:Jean Cocteau
“I do not think my painting has ever been revolutionary. It was not directed against any kind of painting. I have never wanted to prove that I was right and someone else wrong.” ThinkingKindWantedPaintingProveRevolutionaryModernism Author:Georges Braque
“Surface is a modernist concept. What surface does is to encourage one to see the painting as object rather than as a window on the world.” WorldDoeObjectsPaintingConceptsWindowSurfaceModernism Author:Kay WalkingStick
“I noticed that the large windows between the paintings [in the Musee d'Art Moderne] interested me more than the art exhibited. From then on, painting as I had known it was finished for me.” ArtKnownPaintingWindowFinishedModernism Author:Ellsworth Kelly
“Modern paintings often seem to have been made quickly, by comparison with the paintings of earlier centuries, and that seems to give us the license to look at them quickly - to consume them and move on.” GivingLooksHas BeensMadeSeemsMovingModernCenturyPaintingComparisonLicenseModernism Author:James Elkins
“The edge in modern painting is charged with neurosis; it meets a world that no longer confirms it but which is hostile or at best indifferent.” WorldModernPaintingEdgesIndifferentHostileModernismNeurosis Author:Andrew Graham-Dixon
“I am doing what I want to do - painting pictures people want and understand. I have no burning ambition to create the kind of 'art' which the confused critics praise for its 'plastic significance,' 'fluid lines,' and 'inner awareness,' or 'must be understood on three levels.” PeopleWantKindArtThreeLinesLevelsAwarenessPaintingAmbitionUnderstoodPraiseCriticsBurningConfusedSignificancePlasticFluidModernismPainting A Picture Author:Arnold Friberg
“Painting is... a correspondence between what you are and what you see. It's a moment when something is holding together in such a way that it is a universe in itself... Within this is a test and also a judgment upon yourself, your capabilities, your promises, and the part that you play in the world. And nobody else can test that for you. Certainly not the Museum of Modern Art.” WorldWayArtPlayMomentsTogetherUniverseModernPaintingPromiseJudgmentTestsMuseumsCapabilityModernismCorrespondenceModern Art Author:Milton Resnick