"What fascinates me about Van Gogh is that his sun dries up everything. Maybe he was melodramatic but my point really is.. ..if you are a painter you have to face that self-consciousness. You get dirty and pathetic; very miserable. It makes me self-conscious to talk about it. There is something corrupt on art. Nothing do with any 'ism' but a thing in nature loses its innocence and becomes a grotesque thing.. ..maybe this difficulty is personal with me, and maybe it is something that other painters have in common. Perhaps it is also something of today. [in conversation with W.C. Seitz]"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Quote from Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p. 121.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willem_de_Kooning
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (24 April 1904 – 19 March 1997) was an abstract expressionist painter, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, who settled in the United States. Along with Jackson Pollock, and others, he was an exponent of Abstract expressionism. Initially, he was strongly influenced by Picasso, Cubism, and Chaim Soutine. He was married with Elaine de Kooning and closely befriended with Arshile Gorky; later with Franz Kline.
47 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Willem de Kooning →
Related Quotes
"The word 'abstract' comes from the light tower of the philosophers.. ..and it seems to be one of their spotlights tha…"
"The beauty of comfort.. .To compose with curves like that, and angles, and make works of art with them could only mak…"
"The texture of experience is prior to everything else."
"For really, when you think of all the life and death problems in the art of the Renaissance, who cares if a Chevalier…"
"There is a train track in the history of art that goes way back to Mesopotamia. It skips the whole Orient, The Mayas,…"
"It is disastrous to name ourselves."
"Nature then, is just nature. I admit I am very impressed with it. The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the ar…"
"I admit I know little of Orient art. But that is because I cannot find in it what I am looking for, or what I am talk…"
"I am always in the picture somewhere. The amount of space I use I am always in, I seem to move around in it. And ther…"
"When, about fifteen years ago, I walked into Arshile's studio for the first time, the atmosphere was so beautiful tha…"