Robert Motherwell: Modernity

Robert Motherwell was American artist. Explore interesting quotes on modernity.
Robert Motherwell: 84   quotes 0   likes

“A modern painter may have many audiences or one or none; he paints in relation to none of them, though he longs for the audience of other modern painters.”

Robert Motherwell

Source: 1950s, The painter and the audience' (1954), p. 107

Painting

“Plastic automatism.... as employed by modern masters, like Masson, Miro, [both artists of Surrealism] and Picasso, is actually very little a question of the unconsciousness. It is much more a plastic weapon with which to invent new forms. As such it is one of the twentieth century greatest formal inventions.”

Robert Motherwell

Modern Painter's World, Robert Motherwell , Dyn, Nov. 1942, p. 13
1940s

Question

“[modern art is the story of certain peoples'] desire to get rid of what is dead in human experience, to get rid of concepts, whether aesthetic or metaphysical or ethical or social, that, being garbed in the costumes of the past, get in the way of their enjoyment.”

Robert Motherwell

Lecture at Mount Holyoke College, August 1944; later published as 'A Tour of the Sublime', in 'Tiger's Eye', 15 Dec. 1948; as cited in 'Robert Motherwell, American Painter and Printmaker' https://www.theartstory.org/artist-motherwell-robert-life-and-legacy.htm#writings_and_ideas_header, on 'Artstory'
1940s

People , Art , Way , Past

“We must remember that ideas modify feelings. The anti-intellectualism of English and American artists has led them to the error of not perceiving the connection between the feeling of modern forms and modern ideas. By feeling is meant the response of the 'body-and-mind' as a whole to the events of reality.”

Robert Motherwell

Modern Painter's World, ed. Robert Motherwell , Dyn, Nov. 1942, p. 9
1940s

Error , Feeling , Idea , Reality

“One is to know that art is not national, that to be merely an American or a French artist is to be nothing; to fail to overcome one's initial environment is never to reach the human... Thus when we say one of the ideals of modern art has been internationalism, it is.... as a natural consequence of dealing with reality on a certain level.”

Robert Motherwell

quote in 1946
As quoted in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p. 439
1940s

Art , Quotes , Nature , Reality

“Great art is never extreme. Criticism moves in a false direction, as does art, when it aspires to be a social science... In this world modern artists form a kind of spiritual underground.”

Robert Motherwell

Motherwell's writing in 1944; as cited in 'Robert Motherwell, American Painter and Printmaker' https://www.theartstory.org/artist-motherwell-robert-life-and-legacy.htm#writings_and_ideas_header, on 'Artstory'
1940s

World , Art , Science , Falseness

“We [the American Abstract-expressionist artists of the 1940's] were formed by the Depression [1930's], when the American dream lay in pieces on the floor. The possibility of making money was inconceivable to us. America was innocent in relation to modern art, and no one cared. The reigning painters in America were very parochial in relation to the international tradition... What held us together was our ambition to use the standards of international modernism as a gauge, not those of Thomas Hart Benton or Grant Wood or Guy Pene du Bois. We did have a terrible struggle, but not for success. It was to make painting that would stand up under international scrutiny, and all the rest was a byproduct.”

Robert Motherwell

as cited by Grace Glueck, in 'Robert Motherwell, Master of Abstract, Dies', by Grace Glueck, 'New York Times, 18 July 1991 https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/18/obituaries/robert-motherwell-master-of-abstract-dies.html
Undated

Money , Dreams , Art , Guy

“Every intelligent modern painter carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head.”

Robert Motherwell

Abstract Expressionism, David Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London, 1990, p. 22
1950s

Intelligence , Painting

“I believe that painter's judgments of painting are first ethical, then aesthetic, the aesthetic judgments flowing from an ethical context. Doubtless no painter systematically thinks this way; but it does seem to me to be basically what happens when modern painters judge any new manifestations of painting... An artist's 'art' is just his consciousness, developed slowly and painstakingly with many mistakes en route. How dare they collect those ugly early Van Gogh's like trophies…”

Robert Motherwell

Source: 1950s, The painter and the audience' (1954), pp. 109-110

Art , Way , Thinking , Painting

“Among other ends, modern art is related to the ideal of Internationalism.”

Robert Motherwell

American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950's, An Illustrated Survey, Herskovic, Marika; nyschoolpress, 2003, p.238
after 1970

Art

“Indeed, our society, which has seemed so freedom-giving and passive in its attitudes toward the artist really makes extraordinary demands upon him: on the one side, to be free in some vague spiritual sense, free to act only as an artist, and yet on the other side to be rigorously tested as to whether the freedom he has achieved is great enough to be more solidly dependable than a government's financial structure... No wonder that modern painters, in view of these curious relations to society, have taken art matters into their own hands, decides for themselves what art is, what its subjects are to be, and how they are to be treated. Art like love is an active process of growth and development.”

Robert Motherwell

Source: 1950s, The painter and the audience' (1954), p. 108

Love , Art , Sense , Freedom