“To an art historian a Giotto is a 14th Century painting. To an artist it was painted yesterday. We free ourselves from the past when we see it freshly.” ArtPastArtistCenturyPaintingMastersYesterdayHistorianGiotto Author:Walter Darby Bannard
“We're all so clogged with dead ideas passed from generation to generation that even the best of us don't know the way out We invented the Revolution but we don't know how to run it Look everyone wants to keep something from the past a souvenir of the old regime This man decides to keep a painting This one keeps his mistress He [ pointing ] keeps his garden He [ pointing ] keeps his estate He keeps his country house He keeps his factories This man couldn't part with his shipyards This one kept his army and that one keeps his king” KnowsMenWayWantLooksIdeasCountryRunningPastHouseKnow HowGenerationsPaintingRevolutionKingsGardenArmyFactoriesRegimesEstatesPointingMistressSouvenirsCountry Houses Author:Peter Weiss
“What is painting today? It's a discontinued thing, discontinued from anything serious that happened in the past.” TodayPastHappenedPaintingSerious Author:Matthew Collings
“If you really want to seriously think about life, and therefore take painting very seriously... and take seriously the joys that it can bring to one, then you want to go to museums. You want to study the great of the past.” IfsThinkingWantPastJoyStudyPaintingMuseums Author:Nelson Shanks
“My concern today is with the painting of manners of the present. The past is interesting not only by reason of the beauty which could be distilled from it by those artists for whom it was the present, but also precisely because it is the past, for its historical value. It is the same with the present. The pleasure which we derive from the representation of the present is due not only to the beauty with which it can be invested, but also to its essential quality of being present” ReasonTodayPastArtistValuesPleasureInterestingQualityPaintingEssentialsConcernHistoricalDuesMannersRepresentationHistorical Value Book:The Painters of Modern Life Source: The Painters of Modern Life