“Feeling must have a medium in order to function at all; in the same way, thought must have symbols. It is the medium, or the specific configuration of the medium that we call a work of art that brings feeling into being, just as do responses tot the objects of the external world... The medium of painting is such changing and ordering on an ideal plane, ideal in that the medium is more tractable, subtle, and capable of emphasis (abstraction is a kind of emphasis) than everyday life.”

—  Robert Motherwell

Source: 1940s, Beyond the Aesthetics' (1946), pp. 38-39

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 "Feeling must have a medium in order to function at all; in the same way, thought must have symbols. It is the medium, o…" by Robert Motherwell?
Robert Motherwell photo
Robert Motherwell42
American artist 1915–1991

Related quotes

Mark Rothko photo

“Feeling must have a medium in order to function at all; in the same way, thought must have symbols. It is the medium, or the specific configuration of the medium that we call a work of art that brings feeling into being, just as do responses tot the objects of the external world... The medium of painting is such changing and ordering on an ideal plane, ideal in that the medium is more tractable, subtle, and capable of emphasis (abstraction is a kind of emphasis) than everyday life.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

Source: 1940's, Beyond the Aesthetics (1946), pp. 38-39

“The difference between the arts arises because of the difference in the nature of the mediums of expression and the emphasis induced by the nature of each medium. Each means of expression has its own order of being, its own units.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Painting and Culture' p. 57
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“One must realize that, apart from considerations of color and form, there are two fundamentally different ways of regarding a medium of expression: one is based on taste only — an approach in which the external physical elements of expression are merely pleasingly arranged. This way results in decoration with no spiritual reaction. Arrangement is not art. The second way is based on the artist’s power of empathy, to feel the intrinsic qualities of the medium of expression. Through these qualities the medium comes to life... In this life, an intuitive artist discovers the emotive and vital substance which makes a work of art.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 46
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“Memory is the medium of the must-have-been.”

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Book I, Chapter 1, p. 30
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

Harold Innis photo

“We must appraise civilization in relation to its territory and in relation to its duration. The character of the medium of communication tends to create a bias in civilization favourable to an over-emphasis on the time concept or on the space concept and only at rare intervals are the biases offset by the influence of another medium and stability achieved.”

Harold Innis (1894–1952) Canadian professor of political economy

A Plea for Time (1950), a paper presented at the University of New Brunswick, published in The Bias of Communication (1951) p. 64.
The Bias of Communication (1951)

Why the lucky stiff photo

“Reality's kind of a medium, maybe greater than paper. We all want life to have the same texture that we read about in novels.”

Why the lucky stiff American computer programmer

Collected PDFs (2013)

Henri Matisse photo

“I have been no more than a medium, as it were.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

As quoted in Smithsonian (November 1986)
Posthumous quotes

Nicky Case photo

“No medium is particularly better than any other medium for tackling pressing social issues. But, yeah, it really depends on what options I can do. Games happen to be the medium I'm most familiar with.”

Nicky Case indie game developer

"Indie Game Developer Nicky Case Discusses "Coming Out Simulator" and the LGBTQ Community's Relationship With Gaming" http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/07/indie-game-developer-nicky-case-discusses-coming-out-simulator-lgbtq-gaming-and-the-walking-dead

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan photo

“All art is the expression of experience in some medium.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Related topics