Quotes of: Van Keyword

To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them.

Ben Shahn

I feel very comfortable in New York, in a city where there is no such thing as 'nationality.'

Bernard Tschumi

The practice of giving an A transports your relationships from the world of measurement into the universe of possibility... This A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.

Benjamin Zander

It would follow that 'significant form' was form behind which we catch a sense of ultimate reality.

Clive Bell

I'm very learning-disabled, and I think it drove me to what I'm doing.

Chuck Close

The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 black-and whites.

Chuck Close

The reason I don't like realist, photorealist, neorealist, or whatever, is that I am as interested in the artificial as I am in the real.

Chuck Close

It is no use asking me or anyone else how to dig... Better to go and watch a man digging, and then take a spade and try to do it.

Gertrude Jekyll

If you know somethin' well, you can always paint it but people would be better off buyin' chickens.

Grandma Moses

I paint from the top down. From the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people.

Grandma Moses

I am dominated by one thing, an irresistible, burning attraction towards the abstract.

Gustave Moreau

Marks on paper are free - free speech - press - pictures all go together I suppose.

Georgia O'Keeffe

I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.

Georgia O'Keeffe

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way... things I had no words for.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.

Georgia O'Keeffe

A tree against the sky possesses the same interest, the same character, the same expression as the figure of a human.

Georges Rouault

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.

Georges Rouault

I have always been structured. What has changed is the proportions. Now it is eight hours of paperwork and one of painting.

Gerhard Richter

Now that we do not have priests and philosophers any more, artists are the most important people in the world.

Gerhard Richter

One really beautiful wrist motion, that is synchronised with your head and heart, and you have it. It looks as if it were born in a minute.

Helen Frankenthaler

I don't think you can lightly paint a picture. It's an activity I take very seriously.

Howard Hodgkin