"It is true – is it not – that even Ingres [French classical painter, famous for his line] had to revise – yes, the surface of the painting is smooth, finished and incorruptible as a diamond, but under the accomplished surface are pentimenti – see there at the shoulder, how the line of the black dress was lowered qua fraction and the hand was extended to give greater elegance.. .Are these not signs of the patient revision that even a genius has to make."
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p. 358: 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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