Philip Guston Quotes about Art

Studio Ghosts: When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if

Studio Ghosts: When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting YOU walk out.

Philip Guston

Inspirational, Teacher, Art

Frustration is one of the great things in art. Satisfaction is nothing.

Philip Guston

Art, Frustration, Satisfaction

Philip Guston, Clark Coolidge (2011). “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations”, p.54, Univ of California Press

The canvas is a court where the artist is prosecutor, defendant, jury and judge. Art without a trial disappears at a glance.

Philip Guston

Art, Judging, Trials

Philip Guston, Clark Coolidge (2011). “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations”, p.53, Univ of California Press

No good to paint in the head - what happens is what happens when you put the paint down - you can only hope that you are alert - ready - to see. What joy it is for paint to become a thing - a being. Believe in this miracle - it is your only hope. To will this transformation is not possible. Only a slow maturation can prepare the hand and eye to become quicker than ever. Ideas about art don't matter. They collapse anyway in front of the painting.

Philip Guston

Art, Believe, Eye

All these troubles revolve around the irritable mutual dependence of life and art - with their need and contempt for one another. Of necessity, to create is a temporary state and cannot be possessed.

Philip Guston

Art, Needs, Trouble

Philip Guston, Clark Coolidge (2011). “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations”, p.54, Univ of California Press

But you begin to feel as you go on working that unless painting proves its right to exist by being critical and self-judging, it has no reason to exist at all - or is not even possible. The canvas is a court where the artist is prosecutor, defendant, jury and judge. Art without a trial disappears at a glance.

Philip Guston

Art, Self, Judging

'ARTnews Annual', Artnews Associates., October 1966.

There are so many things in the world - in the cities - so much to see. Does art need to represent this variety and contribute to its proliferation? Can art be that free? The difficulties begin when you understand what it is that the soul will not permit the hand to make.

Philip Guston

Art, Hands, Cities

Philip Guston, Clark Coolidge (2011). “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations”, p.53, Univ of California Press