“My idea of a perfect surrealist painting is one in which every detail is perfectly realistic, yet filled with a surrealistic, dreamlike mood. And the viewer himself can't understand why that mood exists, because there are no dripping watches or grotesque shapes as reference points. That is what I'm after: that mood which is apart from everyday life, the type of mood that one experiences at very special moments.” IdeasMomentsPerfectWatchesSpecialPaintingTypeShapesFilledEverydayDetailsMoodRealisticEveryday LifeViewersSurrealismGrotesqueDrippingSurrealistSpecial Moments Author:Ian Hornak
“I am a communist and my painting is a communist painting. But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in any special way to show my politics.” IfsWayShowsPoliticsSpecialPaintingShoesCommunistHammers Author:Pablo Picasso
“The fools who write articles about me think that one morning I suddenly decided to write and began to produce masterpieces. There is no special trick about writing, or painting either. I wrote constantly for 15 years before I produced anything with any solidity to it.” ThinkingWritingYearsMorningSpecialProducePaintingFoolDecidedExperienceTricksArticlesMasterpieceSolidity Book:Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout Source: Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout
“You cannot just be working in a vast, air-conditioned loft space and think you are going to make a decent painting. Francis Bacon had a special studio built, and he felt completely emasculated in there. I have to be somewhere comfortable.” ThinkingFeltSpaceAirSpecialPaintingComfortableBuiltStudiosDecent Author:Peter Doig
“I think it's an American curse that most of us think we are special. ... everyone believes themselves to be superior to the majority of the population in some way. Sometimes it's their looks, other times their perceived sex appeal (often in obvious defiance of their looks), and other times it is their real or imagined talent for acting, writing, painting or banging on the drums. And because people are so susceptible to flattery, there exists an entire industry made up of scam artists whose sole goal is to fleece the flatterable.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingBelieveLooksMadeRealSometimesArtistSexGoalActingSpecialTalentPaintingIndustryMajorityPopulationObviousSuperiorsAppealsCurseSoleFlatteryDefianceSusceptibleBangingSex AppealScamsFleece Author:Fay Faron
“I can't do the movies like I do painting because I am really more of a sort of dilettante or something. I mean I know guys that make movies that I can see it is absolutely their medium and they can just go from one movie right into the next because it is just - they have got it so much on the tips of their fingers. But for me it is a special effort.” KnowsMeanI CanGuyNextEffortSpecialPaintingFingersMediumsDilettantes Author:Red Grooms
“Good evening, and welcome to a private showing of three paintings, displayed here for the first time. Each is a collectors' item in its own way - not because of any special artistic quality, but because each captures on a canvas, and suspends in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.” WayFirstsArtMomentsThreeSpaceQualitySpecialPaintingFirst TimeWelcomeEveningArtisticNightmareCaptureCanvasFrozenTime And SpaceItemsCollectorsGood Evening Author:Rod Serling
“Before I start painting I have a slightly ambiguous feeling: happiness is a special excitement because unhappiness is always possible a moment later.” MomentsFeelingsEmotionSpecialPaintingExcitementUnhappinessAmbiguous Author:Francis Bacon
“The dominant problem of pictorial art since the nineteen-fifties is photography, and, by extension, film and video. The basilisk eye of the camera has withered the pride of handworked mediums. Painting survives on a case-by-case basis, its successes amounting to special exemptions from a verdict of history.” ArtProblemEyeFilmCasesSpecialPaintingPridePhotographyBasesCamerasVideoMediumsDominantExtensionsNineteenVerdictWitheredPictorialExemption Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“All pictures are unnatural. All pictures are sad because they're about dead people. Paintings you don't think of in a special time or with a specific event. With photos I always think I'm looking at something dead.” PeopleThinkingSpecialEventsPaintingUnnaturalDead PeopleSpecial Times Author:David Bailey