Spanish Sculptor Quotes

Joan Miró

Juan Gris

Antoni Tàpies

The artist may rightly venture the opinion that he does not convey ideas, does not preach, nor that he intents to convert people by using mass communication techniques... Better than handing out all kinds of wise advice, he could show life itself; he could awake forces lying dormant in everybody, he could launch an invitation to create direct and personal experiences.

Painting for me is like a fabric, all of a piece and uniform, with one set of threads as the representational, esthetic element, and the cross-threads as the technical, architectural, or abstract element. These threads are interdependent and complementary, and if one set is lacking the fabric does not exist. A picture with no representational purpose is to my mind always an incomplete technical exercise, for the only purpose of any picture is to achieve representation.

I have thought a lot about the question of titles. I must confess that I find any for works that take off from an arbitrary starting point and end with something real....[Miro allowed Pierre Matisse to make titles, based on the] real things....[if they do] not evoke some tendency or other, something I want to avoid completely [very probably Miro meant here: Surrealism]. [advising Pierre Matisse; who showed then several modern European painters in New York].