Alexander Calder Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

Just as one can compose colors, or forms, so one can compose motions.

Alexander Calder
My entrance into the field of abstract art came about as the result of a visit to the studio of Piet Mondrian in Paris in 1930.
I was particularly impressed by some rectangles of color he had tacked on his wall in a pattern after his nature.
I told him I would like to make them oscillate he objected. I went home and tried to paint abstractly-but in two weeks I was back again among plastic materials.
I think that at that time and practically ever since, the underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model to work from.

Alexander Calder
That others grasp what I have in mind seems unessential, at least as long as they have something else in theirs.

Alexander Calder
The universe is real, but you can't see it. You have to imagine it.

Alexander Calder
Scientists leave their discoveries, like foundlings, on the doorstep of society, while the stepparents do not know how to bring them up.

Alexander Calder
When an artist explains what he is doing, he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make his work fit in with the explanation.

Alexander Calder
If you can imagine a thing, conjure it up in space then you can make it... The universe is real but you can't see it. You have to imagine it. Then you can be realistic about reproducing it.

Alexander Calder