Agnes Martin Quotes
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There's no indication or hint about the material world in my painting. No, I don't paint about the world. Everybody else is painting about the world. That's enough.
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Inspiration comes from a clear mind. Right straight through. We have nothing to do with it.
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It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words. But there is a wide range of emotional response that we make that cannot be put into words. We are so used to making these emotional responses that we are not consciously aware of them till they are represented in art work.
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..the function of art work is.. ..the renewal of memories of moments of perfection.
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When we realize that we can see life we gradually give up the things that stand in the way of our complete awareness. As we paint we move along step by step. We realize that we are guided in our work by awareness of life.
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People think that painting is about colorIt's mostly compositionIt's composition that's the whole thingThe classic image-Two late Tang dishes, one with a flower image,one empty – the empty form goes all the way to heavenIt is the classic form – lighter weight.
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Beauty is very much broader than just to the eye. It is our whole, positive response to life. An artist is fortunate in that his work is the inner contemplation of beauty, of perfection in life. We cannot make anything perfectly, but with inner contemplation of perfection, we can suggest it.
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about Ad Reinhardt: ..we supported each other.. .He thought I was a good painter, and I thought he was a good painter.
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I used to pay attention to the clouds in the sky.. .I paid close attention for a month to see if they ever repeated. They don't repeat. And I don't think life does either. It's continually various. That's the truth about life.
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The truth is that I have lived on an even keel. I don't go down, and I don't go up. I believe in living above the line. Above the line is happiness and love, you know. Below the line is all sadness and destruction and unhappiness. And I don't go down below the line for anything.
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I was very happy. I thought I would cut my way through life.. ..victory after victory, laughing.. Well, I adjusted as soon as they carried me into my mother. Half of my victories fell to the ground.. she pauses ..My mother had victories. her candid, weather-beaten face darkens abruptly
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I painted a painting called 'Milk River' in 1963 Cows don't give milk if they don't have grass and water Tremendous meaning of that is that painters can't give anything to the observer. People get what they need from a painting. The painter need not die because of responsibility. When you have inspiration and represent inspirationThe observer makes the painting.
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When I cover the square surface with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square. Destroys its power.
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Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it. I want to draw a certain response like this.. ..that quality of response from people when they leave themselves behind, often experienced in nature, an experience of simple joy.. .My paintings are about merging, about formlessness.. .A world without objects, without interruption.
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Everything is contemplated in the mind without meditation. We make a very complicated response. Just to look at a floating branch evokes very complicated objective and nonobjective responses. The artist must slow all this down, mentally. It is this mental experience that makes the representation of beauty possible.
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The Minimalists were nonobjective. They just recorded beauty, I guess, without the emotions - or at least without personal emotions. My work is a little more emotional than that.
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It was so flat, you know, you could see the curves of the earth. And when a train came into vision at nine o'clock in the morning, it was still leaving at noon.. ..it took that long to get across the prairie.
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Take beauty: it's a very mysterious thing, isn't it? I think it's a response in our minds to perfection.. .My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They're just horizontal lines. There's not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think.
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My interest is in experience that is wordless and silent, and in the fact that this experience can be expressed for me in art work which is also wordless and silent.
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Pollock was terrific. I think he freed himself of all kinds of worry about this world. Ran around and dripped, and then he managed to express ecstasy.
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To be an artist, you look, you perceive, you recognize what is going through your mind. And it is not ideas. Everything you feel and everything you see and everything that your whole life goes through your mind, you know. But you have to recognize it and go with it and really feel it.
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Of course we know that an untroubled state of mind cannot last. So we say that inspiration comes and goes but really it is there all the time waiting for us to be untroubled again. We can therefore say that it is pervasive. Young children are more untroubled than adults and have many more inspirations.
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The adventurous state of / mind is a high house // To enjoy life the adventurous / state of mind must be / grasped and maintained // The essential feature of adventure is that it is a / going forward into / unknown territory // The joy of adventure is unaccountable // This is the attractiveness of / art work. It is adventurous, / strenuous and joyful.
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Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings. That's the end of the interview.