“Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make”

— W.B. Yeats, book The Tower

St. 4 The Tower (1928), Sailing to Byzantium http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1575/ Context: Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

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W.B. Yeats255

Irish poet and playwright 1865–1939

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“Only when the habit of one's consciousness to see in paintings bits of nature, Madonna's and shameless nudes.... has disappeared, shall we see a pure painting composition. I have transformed myself into the nullity of forms and pulled myself out of the circle of things, out of the circle-horizon in which the artist and forms of nature are locked.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

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“I have been thinking of what you say about form... I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown.... and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown known. By unknown I mean the thing that means so much to the person that he want to put it down - clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand... Making the unknown known.... if you stop to think of form as form you are lost.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

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“No form of Nature is inferior to Art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Meditations. xi. 10.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“I believe that one should not think so much about nature when painting, at least not during the conception of the picture. Make the color sketch exactly as one has felt something in nature. But my personal feeling is the main thing. Once I have established it, lucid in tone and color, I must bring in from nature the things that make my painting seem natural, so that a layman will only think that 1 have painted it from nature.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

quote from her Diaries, 1 October, 1902; as cited in Expressionism, a German intuition, 1905-1920, Neugroschel, Joachim; Vogt, Paul; Keller, Horst; Urban, Martin; Dube, Wolf Dieter; (transl. Joachim Neugroschel); publisher: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1980, p. 31
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“Always lines, never forms. Where do they find these lines in Nature? Personally I see only forms that are lit up and forms that are not, planes that advance and planes that recede, relief and depth. My eye never sees outlines or particular features or details… …My brush should not see better than I do.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

Goya, in a recall of an overheard conversation
conversation of c. 1808, in the earliest biography of Goya: Goya, by Laurent Matheron, Schulz et Thuillié, Paris 1858; as quoted by Robert Hughes, in: Goya. Borzoi Book - Alfred Knopf, New York, 2003, p. 176
probably not accurate word for word, but according to Robert Hughes it rings true in all essentials, of the old Goya, in exile
1800s

“Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
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This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own."”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower, st. 1 (1799).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

“The goodness of the Universe is not limited. When something "looks as if" it is running out, do not fret. This, or something better, is on its way. Sufficiency is the natural order of things. Good never runs out -- although it may change form.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

“I shall never, under any circumstances, agree to a representative form of government because I consider it harmful to the people whom God has entrusted to my care.”

Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918) Emperor of All the Russias, Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland By the Grace of God

As quoted in https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/quotations-imperial-russia-tsarism/ 1890s

“Naturally, form has come to take precedence over color with me, though when I began painting color predominated. Slowly artistic evolution carried from color to form and while I still employ color, of course, it is the drawing which assumes the place of first importance in my pictures.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

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1910's

“We speak of concrete and not 'abstract painting', because we have finished with the period of research and speculative experience. In their search for purity artists were obliged to abstract from 'natural forms' in which the plastic elements were hidden, in order to eliminate natural forms and to replace them with 'artistic forms'. To-day the idea of 'artistic form' is as obsolete as the idea of 'natural form'. We establish the period of pure painting by constructing 'spiritual form.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Creative spirit becomes concrete.
Quote on 'Concrete art', in: 'Comments on the basic of concrete painting', Paris, January 1930; 'Art Concret', April 1930, pp. 2–4
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“Once out of nature I shall never takeMy bodily form from any natural thing,But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make”

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W.B. Yeats255

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“Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make”