Karel Appel citations (58 citations, Page 2)

Karel Appel: 58 citations 0 J'aime

Karel Appel: Citations en anglais

“If the stroke of the brush is so important, it is because it expresses precisely what is not there.”

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Karel Appel

quote 1985 - from CF, 44; p. 69
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

“.. I believe, they always say to me that I'm an expressionist, I don't know why, because perhaps the technique is [not understood] and the colour is strong... But for some years, I work, I feel much more of, of the space, that is: magic is spacious if you like. Because for me man is an infinitely creative space. And because of that I am always looking to expand my work, you know, to find space.”

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Karel Appel

explaining his need for large sizes
Karel Appel defines his painting', interview 1968

“Every day I have to be awake to escape... The whole world is sleepy. It is a real fight to be awake, to see everything new, for the first time in your life.”

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Karel Appel

Quote from 'The eye of the beholder', Carlo McCormick
Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990) not-paged

“The only control that I excercize [in painting] is to not throw too much paint next to the canvas.”

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Karel Appel

MR1, 177; p. 215
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

“I have painted like an ape. The ape phase is in all my work. My first lick of paint is the ape phase, from that I grow towards a more intellectual phase, involving the lines, the rhythm. From that phase I grow towards mankind, for that is where the power of my imagination lies. It no longer has anything to do with reality, even though the world is present in it - for we recognize people, animals, plants, you name it.”

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Karel Appel

quote of Karel Appel: from the conversation with Rudy Fuchs in 1990; as quoted in 'The Low Countries', Jaargang 12(2004) on DBNL (Dutch Librairy online) http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_low001200401_01/_low001200401_01_0027.php

“('My three year old daughter can do as much'.) Yes, it is true, but the difference is that I do it.”

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Karel Appel

MR1, 51; p. 197
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

“The mill is a tool for the wind
the mill is like a human being
that escapes”

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Karel Appel

ATV, 47; p. 183
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

“My paint is like a rocket, which describes its own space. I try to make the impossible possible. What is happening I cannot foresee, it is a surprise. Painting, like passion, is an emotion full of truth and rings a living sound, like the roar coming from the lion's breast.”

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Karel Appel

Karel Appel's excerpt', c. 1953

“The struggle begins, to harmonize canvas, eye, hand, forms. New apparitions stalk the earth.”

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Karel Appel

Karel Appel's excerpt', c. 1953

“The duty of the artist is not to be calculating in any sense, so that he may be free himself of human emotions while carried by the universal forces of life. Only then does one not think about making art, or about styles, or directions. Something comes about, something happens.”

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Karel Appel

Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990) not-paged

“One of my first sculptures was made of bicycle parts. I was living at that time in a attic in the red light section of Amsterdam. I started to work without any specific materials. I was looking in the street like when I was a young boy, in the garbage cans, for ropes, wires, and paint. I left my parents in 1940. Years later I saw an exhibition of Kurt Schwitters at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam curated by Willem Sandberg and there I saw the real 'objet trouvé'; until then I had never heard about it. Schwitters was a shattering experience.”

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Karel Appel

Source: Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990), p. 79 'Quotes', K. Appel (1989)

“As I said, in the Fifties I had the 'angst' (= Dutch for 'fear') to survive materialistically. In the city Paris it was a battle. I painted with a knife and called the results 'human landscapes', abstract landscapes with human faces here and there. Today I can do without fight or struggle; every brushstroke now is ready, goes by itself: la peinture depouillé you could say. I discovered that in Picasso's late paintings. You look very closely but there is nothing anymore. He painted here and there a little bit; it is not finished, but once you step back you see a fantastic image, life by itself. I'm not fighting anymore; I'm floating, surfing on the wind.”

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Karel Appel

Source: Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990), p. 95 'Quotes', K. Appel (1989)

“He is like an angel who floats for a little while on this planet and touches with his wings the canvas.”

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Karel Appel

“quote, c. 1960; from the documentary De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel, by Dutch filmer Jan Vrijman, 1962”

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Karel Appel

“.. because I live in Paris, but just outside Paris at the start of Yonne, I have a barn, a very, very big barn.... right near Auxerre, a barn forty meters long, six meters wide and fifteen meters high, and I do all my work there.. it's like a large street, you know.”

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Karel Appel

describing the location outside Paris, where he makes his large relief compositions
Karel Appel defines his painting', interview 1968

“Our civilization is in a continuous state of self-repair. Maybe you have undergone surgery once. In former times you might have died. Today everybody can live on and on; everything around us is repaired, even the spirit. Look at the young artists. They only paint the facade and not the things hidden behind it. I don't say that life is lost its originality. I show straightforwardly the state of repair of civilization.”

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Karel Appel

Appel is referring to his sculpture 'State of liberty'
Source: Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990), p. 85 'Quotes', K. Appel (1989)

“It's like this - you are in front of your canvas, you hand holds the paint, ready, raised. The canvas waits, waits, empty and white - but all the time it knows what it wants. So - what does it want, anyway? My hand comes near, my eyes begin to transform the waiting canvas; and when - with my hands holding the paint and my eyes seeing the forms - I touch the canvas, it trembles, it comes to life.”

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Karel Appel

Karel Appel's excerpt', c. 1953

“To paint is to destroy what preceded. I never try to make a painting, but a chunk of life. It is a scream; it is a night; it is like a child; it is a tiger behind bars.”

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Karel Appel

Karel Appel's excerpt', c. 1953

“The brushstroke, in painting, is purely and
simply what it is – rhythm,
color, matter.”

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Karel Appel

ATV, 187; p. 175
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

“At the very moment when my ego is unprooted [uprooted? ] and freed of intellectual activities and values, the realization of what is still unknown and uncreated, the silent 'non-form' unity emerges, appearing as childish schizophrenia. The indefinable beginning takes form”

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Karel Appel

1969 - from CF,32; p. 45
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

“The experience of the moment is what's important, and somehow the image, the 'thing' is left over.”

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Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990) not-paged

“Through play, we renew contact with childhood - My art is childlike.”

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Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990) not-paged

“Now we'll start the song of the wild man who lives on the mountain top, who does not want to be seen
let us now start that song without words, without music, come on..
(let's not do anything for at least ten minutes)
That's the spirit, there he comes, the song of the inner voice, the song of the primitive man”

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a poem of Karel Appel, 1981; from Karel Appel. The Colourful Stranger. Poems and Drawings (Karel Appel. De kleurige onbekende. Gedichten en tekeningen), Amsterdam, 1986