“If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.”

Last update Nov. 21, 2022. History

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Edward Hopper 48
prominent American realist painter and printmaker 1882–1967

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“The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint. …  I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way — things I had no words for.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

1970 - 1986, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)
Context: It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colours put together so that they say something. For me that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint. …  I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way — things I had no words for.<!-- Also quoted in Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction (2007), edited by Richard Marshall, p. 13

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