“Aesthetics is for painting as Ornithology is for the birds.”

—  Barnett Newman

Quote of Newman (1952), as cited in: C. Greig Crysler, ‎Stephen Cairns, ‎Hilde Heynen (2012). The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory. p. 123
1950 - 1960

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Aesthetics is for painting as Ornithology is for the birds." by Barnett Newman?
Barnett Newman photo
Barnett Newman 25
American artist 1905–1970

Related quotes

Richard Feynman photo

“The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Attributed to Feynman, many times, by the British historian of science Brian Cox.
Disputed and/or attributed

Claude Monet photo

“I want to paint the way a bird sings.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Variant: I would like to paint the way a bird sings.
Source: Monet By Himself

Asger Jorn photo

“If you add something to a painting, never let it be for aesthetic reasons. Only let it be for reasons of expression.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Statement to his friend Pierre Alechinsky, between 1965-1970; as quoted in Asger Jorn (2002) by Arken Museum of Modern Art, p. 115
1959 - 1973, Various sources

“Mathematicians tells us that it is easy to invent mathematical theorems which are true, but that it is hard to find interesting ones. In analyzing music or writing its history, we meet the same difficulty, and it is compounded by another. For whom is it interesting? To paraphrase a famous remark of Barnett Newman, musicology is for musicians what ornithology is for the birds.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994), Ch. 3 : Explaining the Obvious

“Illusionistic art appeals to what the public knows not about art but about things. This ability to brush art aside is the secret of the popularity of illusionism. Ever since the Greeks told of painted grapes being pecked by real birds, wonder at skill in deceiving the eye has moved more people than appreciation of aesthetic quality. But for art to depend exclusively upon reproducing appearances has the disadvantage of requiring that the painting or sculpture conform to the common perception of things.”

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic

Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 239, "Reality Again: The New Photorealism"

Robin Hartshorne photo

“Why do I paint? In my work as a mathematician, form, structure, and economy of expression are important. In music, add tone quality, balance and harmony. And now in painting, these aesthetic values are enhanced by color, contrast, and composition.”

Robin Hartshorne (1938) American mathematician

Robin Hartshorne Fine Art, fineartstudioonlione.com http://robinfaso.fineartstudioonline.com/about

Colin Wilson photo

“No art can be judged by purely aesthetic standards, although a painting or a piece of music may appear to give a purely aesthetic pleasure. Aesthetic enjoyment is an intensification of the vital response, and this response forms the basis of all value judgements. The existentialist contends that all values are connected with the problems of human existence, the stature of man, the purpose of life. These values are inherent in all works of art, in addition to their aesthetic values, and are closely connected with them.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

The Chicago Review (Volume 13, no. 2, 1959, p. 152-181)

Willem de Kooning photo

“The aesthetics of painting were always in a state of development parallel to the development of painting itself. They influenced each other and vice versa. But all of the sudden, in that famous turn of the century [1900] a few people thought they could take the bull by the horns and invent an aesthetic beforehand. After immediately disagreeing with each other, they began to form all kinds of groups, each with the idea of freeing art... The question as they saw it, was not so much what you could paint, but what you could not paint. You could not paint a house or a tree or a mountain. It was then that the subject matter came into existence as something you ought not to have.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

De Kooning's speech 'What Abstract Art means to me' on the symposium 'What is Abstract At' - at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 5 February, 1951, n.p.
1950's

Jean Dubuffet photo

“I have tried to draw the human effigy (and all the other subjects dealt with in my paintings) in an immediate and effective way without any reference to the aesthetic.”

Jean Dubuffet book Prospectus et tous écrits suivants

Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 430

“One could go on forever as to whether the paint should be thick or thin, whether to paint the woman or the square, hard-edge or soft, but after a while such questions become a bore. They are merely problems in aesthetics, having only to do with the outer man. But the painting I have in mind, painting in which inner and outer are inseparable, transcends technique, transcends subjects and moves into the realm of the inevitable.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Barbara Rose, ‎Lee Krasner, ‎Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1983) Lee Krasner: a retrospective. p. 134.

Related topics