William Baziotes citations (22 citations)

William Baziotes: 22 citations0 J'aime

William Baziotes: Citations en anglais

“One can begin a picture and carry it through and stop it and do nothing about the title at all.”

Source: Posthumous quotes, Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, (1983), p. 147

“As for the subject matter in my painting…it is very often an incidental thing in the background, elusive and unclear, that really stirred me.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

Fifteen Americans, Exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art, 1952 p. 12
1950s

“Each painting has its own way of evolving. One may start with a few color areas on the canvas; another with a myriad of lines, another with a profusion of colors... Once I sense the suggestion I begin to paint intuitively. The suggestion then becomes a phantom that must be caught and made real. As I work, or when the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

I Cannot Evolve Any Concrete Theory, William Baziotes, in Possibilities, Vol. I, no. 1, New York, winter 1947-48, p. 2
William Baziotes is referring in this quote to Surrealist automatism originally a surrealist art concept
1940s

“I think when a man first discovers that two and two is four, there is 'beauty' in that; and we can see why. But if people stand and look at the moon and one says 'I think it's just beautiful tonight' and the other says 'The moon makes me feel awful' we are both 'clear'. A geometric shape – we know why we like it; and an unreasonable shape; it has a certain mystery that we recognize as real; but it is difficult to put these things in an objective way.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

as cited in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 221: Remark in the 'Artists' Session' at Studio 35, 1950.
1950s

“I consider my painting finished when my eyes goes to a particular spot on the canvas. But if I put the picture away about thirty feet on the wall and the movements keep returning to me and the eye seems to be responding to something living, then it is finished.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

Source: 1950s, Artists' Session at Studio 35, (1950), p. 213

“Contact with other artists has always been of great importance to me. When the artists I know best used to meet.... the talk was mostly of ideas in painting. There was an unconscious collaboration between artists. Whether you agreed or disagreed was of no consequence. It was exciting and you were compelled to paint over your head…. If your painting was criticized adversely, you either imitated someone to give it importance, or you simply suffered and painted harder to make your feelings on canvas convincing... What does happen when artists meet is that we are able to see more clearly the unfolding of character as time goes on.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

Quote from Baziotes' text for the symposium 'The Creative process', Art Digest Vol. 28, no 8, 15; January 1954, p. 33
Baziotes is referring here to the many art-debates and exchanges between the New York Abstract Expressionist artists
1950s

“The large gray spiked form rising from the bottom of the picture is to me the symbol of death and ruin. And finally the black ovoid form is the symbol of fire, lava and destruction.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

in a letter to Alfred H. Barr, Jr. 6 November, 1955; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism, Barbara Hess, Taschen, Köln, 2006, p. 34
Baziotes' quote is referring to his painting 'Pompeii', Baziotes painted in 1955
1950s

“Whereas certain people start with a recollection or an experience and paint that experience, to some of us the act of doing is the experience; so that we are not quite clear why we are engaged on a particular work. And because we are more interested in plastic matters than we are in matters of words, once can begin a painting and carry it through and stop it and do nothing about the title at all. All pictures are full of association.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

Source: 1950s, Artists' Session at Studio 35, (1950), p. 217

“There is always an unconscious collaboration among artists.... the artist who imagine himself a Robinson Crusoe is either a primitive or a fool.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

from Baziote's text for a symposium in 1954; as quoted in William Baziotes – paintings and drawings, ed. Michael Preble, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 2004, p. 18
1950s

“To be inspired. That is the thing.
to be possessed; to be bewitched.
To be obsessed. That is the thing.
To be inspired.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

a poetry line on his painting, in: 'Tiger's Eye', Baziotes, Vol. I, no. 5, Westport, Connecticut, October 1948, p. 35
1940s

“The emphasis on flora, fauna, and beings makes the exhibit a most intriguing and artistic one for it brings forth those strange memories and psychic feelings that mystify and fascinate all of us.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

his remark in 1957
as cited in Abstract Expressionism, Barbara Hess, Taschen, Köln, 2006, p. 34
1950s

“Today it's possible to paint one canvas with the calmness of an ancient Greek and the next with the anxiety of a Van Gogh. Either of these emotions, and any in between, is valid to me... I work on many canvasses at once. In the morning I line them up against the wall of my studio. Some speak, some do not. They are my mirrors. They tell me what I am like at that moment.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

I Cannot Evolve Any Concrete Theory, William Baziotes, in Possibilities, Vol. I, no. 1, New York, winter 1947-48, p. 2
1940s

“I think the reason we [Baziotes himself and Richard Lippold ] begin in a different way, is that this particular time has gotten to a point where the artist feels like a gambler. He does something on the canvas and takes a chance in the hope that something important will be revealed.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

Source: 1950s, Artists' Session at Studio 35, (1950), p. 219

“I can not evolve any concrete theory about painting. What happens on the canvas is unpredictable and surprising to me.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

Source: Posthumous quotes, Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, (1983), p. 135 : original source: 'Willem de Kooning', in 'Moma Bulletin' pp. 6,7

“Its decadence, satiety, and languor [of Roman civilization] interested me. And I kept looking and returning to their wall paintings with their veiled melancholy and their elegant plasticity. I admired the way they used their geology in their art — the sense of mineral, clay. rock, marble, and stone.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

from his letter to Alfred H. Barr, Jr. 6 November, 1955; as cited in the text of 'The Baziotes Memorial Exhibition' and its accompanying catalogue by Lawrence Alloway; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1965, p. 11
1950s

“Let the poet dream his dreams. Yet, the poet must look at the world; must enter into other men's lives; must look at the earth and the sky, must examine the dust in the street; must walk through the world and his mirror.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

The Artist and His Mirror, W. Baziotes, in Right Angle Vol. III, no. 2, Washington DC, June 1949
1940s

“Well, I looked at Picasso [at the Picasso exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, in 1939] until I could smell his armpits and the cigarette smoke on his breast. Finally, in front of one picture – a bone figure on a beach – I got it. I saw that the figure was not his real subject. The plasticity wasn't either – although the plasticity was great. No. Picasso had uncovered a feverishness in himself and is painting it – a feverishness of death and beauty.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

Modern Art U.S.A., R. Blesh, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1956, pp. 268-69
1950s

“We are getting mixed up with the French tradition. In talking about the necessity to 'finish' a thing, we then said American painters 'finish' a thing that looks 'unfinished', and the French, they 'finish' it. I have seen Henri Matisse's that were more 'unfinished' and yet more 'finished' than any American painters. Matisse was obviously in a terrific emotion at the time and he was more 'unfinished' than 'finished.”

Help us translate this quote

William Baziotes

Source: 1950s, Artists' Session at Studio 35, (1950), p. 216