“What are we supposed to do [reacting furiously on art-critic Jules Castagnary who proclaimed the so-called new School of Impressionism, 29 April 1874 in the Paris journal 'Le Siècle'] about these stupid literary people who will never understand that painting is a craft! You make it with materials, not ideas! The ideas come afterwards, when the painting is finished.”

— Pierre-Auguste Renoir

As quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists Sue Roe, Harper-Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, p. 127
1870's

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir 44

French painter and sculptor 1841–1919

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“The painting is finished when it has erased the idea.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

as quoted in Georges Braque: A Life (2005), p. 191 https://books.google.com/books?id=G2aWVKnJWaYC&pg=PA191
posthumous quotes

“There are so many things to paint in the world – in the cities – so much to see. Does art need to represent this variety and contribute to its proliferation? Can art be that free? The difficulties begin when you understand what it is that the soul will not permit the hand to make. To paint is always to start at the beginning again, yet being unable to avoid the familiar arguments about what you see yourself painting. The canvas you are working on modifies the previous ones in an unending, baffling chain which never seems to finish.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

What sympathy is demanded of the viewer! He is asked to 'see' the future links
1961 - 1980, ARTnews Annual', October 1966

“A painting is good if it is not finished. Just like ideas. Finished ideas are dead… Everything is floating, just as in life – also life will never get ready.”

Gerrit Benner (1897–1981) Dutch painter

translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018, version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Een schilderij is goed als het niet af is. Net als bij ideeën. Ideeën die af zijn, zijn dood.. .Alles vloeit, net als in het leven – dat komt ook nooit klaar.
Quote of Gerrit Benner, in: Gerrit Benner, G. Westenberg en E. van Dooren , Harlingen 2005, p. 4; as cited in Lucht in de Nederlandse kunst sinds 1850 https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Catalogus_Lucht.pdf, Antoon Erftemeijer; catalogue of Frans Halsmuseum Haarlem, 2014, p 45
undated quotes

“It wouldn’t take much – one big scientific idea, or artistic idea, one good book, one good painting – who knows – we are at a critical point where the ideas are coming thicker and faster and stranger and stranger than they ever were before.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: To me, when we talk about the world, we are talking about our ideas of the world. Our ideas of organisation, our different religions, our different economic systems, our ideas about it are the world. We are heading for a radical revision where you could say we are heading towards the end of the world, but more in the R. E. M. sense than the Revelation sense. That is what apocalypse means – revelation. I could square that with the end of the world, a revelation, a new way of looking at things, something that completely radicalises our notions of the where we were, when we were, what we were, something like that would constitute an end to the world in the kind of abstract – yet very real sense – that I am talking about. A change in the language, a change in the thinking, a change in the music. It wouldn’t take much – one big scientific idea, or artistic idea, one good book, one good painting – who knows – we are at a critical point where the ideas are coming thicker and faster and stranger and stranger than they ever were before. They are realised at a greater speed, everything has become very fluid.

“Now let acknowledge the fact that to explain the meaning of painting is difficult. And when the form and the content are really new, there is not even a vocabulary with which to attempt to explain the new work. This is a problem for critics and a difficult problem. I think it is about time for the critics to face this problem, as well as the fact that there are a few new forms and ideas in modern painting, that these have validity, that they are here to stay and will be developed whether opposed or not… They should investigate the serious ideas underlying the painting which they malign.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

Gottlieb's quote on the attacks of critics on abstract art, 1948
Quote from Gottlieb's Lecture, given at 'Forum: the Artist Speaks', museum of Modern Art, New York, May 5, 1948.
1940s

“I make what it pleases me to make.... I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason. I intuitively paint flags.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Quote of Jasper Johns, as cited in Trend to the Anti-Art: Targets and Flags, Newsweek 51 no. 13, March 1958, p. 96
1950s

“I don't like that word 'finish'. When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while. I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often. The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

quote of 1948
1942 - 1948
Source: Movements in art since 1945, Edward Lucie-Smith, Thames and Hudson 1975, p 32

“The best colleagues are those who will think about your ideas, who will talk with you and offer insight, constructive criticism. No one needs to be crushed for having a new idea.”

Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) American scientist

"Creativity in Science and Engineering", Martin Perl's blog Reflections on Physics … from the Tau to Dark Energy http://martinperl.com/
Essay on Creativity in Science and Engineering

“…this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse… If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quoted in: Paul Jones (2011), The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing Identities. p. 47.
Other explanation by Picasso of the Guernica.
Quotes, 1930's

“Outside the big idea that there is art I don't think of other's paintings. But I defend the idea of art and know that it is made up of all these paintings. Classic pictures are objects that may or may not influence what you're doing, just like anything else. Like the radio... But it hasn't anything to do with your own art or the artist's intention.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

1950's, Is today's artist with or against the past, (1958)

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir 44

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