Antoni Tapies Quotes about Art

Art should startle the viewer into thinking about the meaning of life.

Art should startle the viewer into thinking about the meaning of life.

Art, Thinking, Meaning Of Life

Barbara Catoir, Antoni Tàpies (1991). “Conversations with Antoni Tàpies: With an Introduction to the Artist's Work”

In our world, in which religious images are losing their meaning, in which our customs are getting more and more secular, we are losing our sense of the eternal. I think it's a loss that has done a great deal of damage to modern art. Painting is a return to origins.

Antoni Tapies

Religious, Art, Loss

"Antoni Tàpies, Spanish Abstract Painter, Dies at 88" by William Grimes, www.nytimes.com. February 6, 2012.

In the potential of absurdity, hiding in the disparate combination of the various different subjects which in themselves are nothing but daily items equally in the exclusive representation of a normal item taken out of their usual context, is by far the most radical - in its effect comparable to a Japanese Zen koan - paradox to be witnessed, which modern art has produced, one of the most forceful impulses that generated from it.

Antoni Tapies

Art, Taken, Usual

"Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 - 2003" by Antoni Tapies, Kunsthalle Emden, edited by Achim Sommer, Altana, (p. 28), 2004.

I often told the fanatics of realism that there is no such thing as realism in art: it only exists in the mind of the observer. Art is a symbol, a thing conjuring up reality in our mental image. That is why I don't see any contradiction between abstract and figurative art either.

Antoni Tapies

Art, Reality, Mind

"Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 - 2003" by Antoni Tapies, Kunsthalle Emden, edited by Achim Sommer, Altana, (p. 25), 2004.

Obviously, the intention was not to go back to images traditionally valued as worthy or holy images and shapes, but exactly the opposite; its main purpose had to be, to realise as sacred art anything which so far had been regarded as of little value and pitiful.

Antoni Tapies

Art, Opposites, Purpose

"Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 - 2003" by Antoni Tapies, Kunsthalle Emden, edited by Achim Sommer, Altana, (p. 38), 2004.