"What I really want to do, it seems, is to paint a single form in the middle of a canvas. ..That's all a painter is, an image maker, is he not? And one would be a fool, some kind of fool, to want to paint a picture. The most powerful instinct is to paint a single form in its continuity, which is after all what a face is. This happens constantly on a picture. I remember last year I became so nervous about what I was doing that I finally reduce it down to the can on the palette with brushes in it. Well, that's real, tat can with brushes. And I painted the an with brushes sticking in it, and I couldn't tolerate it. I couldn't face it. It was as if it didn't contain enough of my thoughts or feelings about it.. ..I became signs. Exactly.. ..It seemed to become signs and symbols and I don't like signs."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 95
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_Guston
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Philip Guston
Philip Guston (1913-07-27 – 1980-06-07) was a notable painter of the New York School, which included many of the Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning. In the 1960's Guston helped to lead the transition from Modernism to Post-Modernism in painting, abandoning the so-called 'pure abstraction' of Abstract Expressionism in favor of more cartoon-like renderings of various personal symbols and objects.
39 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Philip Guston →
Related Quotes
"To will a new form is inacceptable, because will builds distortion. Desire too, is incomplete and arbitrary. These st…"
"Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It's the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual…"
"I have two thoughts [on the question of interviewer Joseph S. Trovato: 'Were the projects a good thing for American a…"
"But you begin to feel as you go on working that unless painting proves its right to exist by being critical and self-…"
"All these troubles revolve around the irritable mutual dependence of life and art – with their need and contempt for …"
"I have a studio in the country - in the woods – but my paintings look more real to me than what is outdoors. You walk…"
"[On the question: 'What was your main stylistic influence up to this time']: The Renaissance chiefly - Piero, Mantegn…"
"To answer your first question - most significantly the [ Federal Art Project ] project was my training ground in the …"
"There are so many things to paint in the world – in the cities – so much to see. Does art need to represent this vari…"
"I mean that the things I felt and that I enjoyed about certain painters of the past that I liked, that inspired me, l…"