"Delacroix spoke of the Greek coin being built from the center out. Vermeer has painted in this way, according to the principles of mass.. .How beautifully they are drawn – Vermeer does not just make a leaf and place it in the design, he relates space and leaf. [in the painting of Vermeer: 'Allegory on the New Testament']. That drapery – it is abstract – observe how this shape [a space between a shepherd and the tree] curves around the center space while the tree counter-curves opposite it, cutting an egg shape.. ..the spaces on the carpet that carry no figuration are, in fact, shapes of vital importance in building the whole.."
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p. 357: in: 'A visit to the Metropolitan Museum with Gorky', Ethel Schwabacher, 1947
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arshile_Gorky
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Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky (15 April 1904 – 21 July 1948), born Vostanik Manoog Adoyan, was an American abstract expressionist painter of Armenian descent, living and working in New York, where he got later strongly involved with American Surrealism. He was a very close friend of Willem de Kooning who respected him as a teacher in painting.
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