Robert Motherwell Quotes about Painting

Painting is a medium in which the mind can actualize itself; it is a medium of thought. Thus painting, like music, tends to become its own content.

Painting is a medium in which the mind can actualize itself; it is a medium of thought. Thus painting, like music, tends to become its own content.

Robert Motherwell

Mind, Painting, Mediums

Robert Motherwell (1999). “The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell”

Painting that does not radiate feeling is not worth looking at. The deepest-and rarest-of grown-up pleasures is true feeling.

Robert Motherwell

Feelings, Doe, Painting

Robert Motherwell (1999). “The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell”

I almost never start with an image. I start with a painting idea, an impulse, usually derived from my own world.

Robert Motherwell

Ideas, World, Painting

Robert Motherwell, Dore Ashton, Jack D. Flam, Albright-Knox Art Gallery (1983). “Robert Motherwell”, Abbeville Pr

If one were to ask a painter what he felt about anything, his just response - though he seldom makes it - would be to paint it, and in painting, to find out.

Robert Motherwell

Would Be, Painting, Painter

I have been continuously aware that in painting, I am always dealing with... a relational structure. Which in turn makes permission 'to be abstract' no problem at all.

Robert Motherwell

Painting, Problem, Abstract

Most painting in the European tradition was painting the mask. Modern art rejected all that. Our subject matter was the person behind the mask.

Robert Motherwell

Art, Matter, Painting

"The Times", November 17, 1985.

Every picture one paints involves not painting others.

Robert Motherwell

Choices, Painting, Paint

Robert Motherwell (1999). “The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell”

I started with straight, basic, symbolic structures. My problem now is the opposite; as I get older, I try to make my paintings more contrapuntal, richer.

Robert Motherwell

Opposites, Trying, Painting

Robert Motherwell, Dore Ashton, Jack D. Flam, Albright-Knox Art Gallery (1983). “Robert Motherwell”, Abbeville Pr