20th-century Painter Quotes

It is important that the painting can be inhabited, so that the mind's eye, or the eye's mind, can move about it credibly.

If the artist is not to lose much of his ancient purpose he may have to plunder the popular arts to recover the imagery which is his rightful inheritance.

Richard Hamilton (artist)

No piece of art can depict feelings if a piece of reality is not included in it.

Somehow, one never really runs away, or I never have, and I find that the faster I go the more catches up with me... all the while time stands, to me, still - straight up and down like a great white sheet.

Once you know about a work of mine you own it. There's no way I can climb inside somebody's head and remove it.

Lawrence Weiner

Religion without art is a dead system of dogmas which have no effect on life.

Anagarika Govinda

It's such an extraordinary supple medium that you never do quite know what paint will do.

Francis Bacon (artist)

I didn't want to be a woman artist, I just wanted to be an artist.

I wanted to get it all down, maybe out of my system. I wanted to be able to say, Everything's possible-if you believe and can get excited.

In art, one idea is as good as another. If one takes the idea of trembling, for instance, all of a sudden most art starts to tremble. Michelangelo starts to tremble. El Greco starts to tremble. All the Impressionists start to tremble.

Willem de Kooning