“I believe that painter's judgments of painting are first ethical, then aesthetic, the aesthetic judgments flowing from an ethical context. Doubtless no painter systematically thinks this way; but it does seem to me to be basically what happens when modern painters judge any new manifestations of painting... An artist's 'art' is just his consciousness, developed slowly and painstakingly with many mistakes en route. How dare they collect those ugly early Van Gogh's like trophies…”

— Robert Motherwell

Source: 1950s, The painter and the audience' (1954), pp. 109-110

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Robert Motherwell 42

American artist 1915–1991

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“It seems to me that today the Surrealist crisis is the central problem in French art. It is essential for future development that this crisis should be solved… The principal error in the aesthetic program of Surrealism is that it is too literary. Painters have experimented with visions, images, dreams, but not with painting, not with color... The unpainterliness of Surrealism has inevitably produced a reaction among younger painters. [Jorn is thinking here of French painters such as Bazaine, Esteve, Lapique, Singier, Le Moal, and he suggests there should be reciprocity]... These artists cannot get any further unless they absorb the lessons of Surrealism into their painting, just as Surrealists can only advance if they adopt the painterly methods of the other group.”

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“Photography is not an art. Neither is painting, nor sculpture, literature or music. They are only different media for the individual to express his aesthetic feelings... You do not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. You may be a shoemaker. You may be creative as such. And, if so, you are a greater artist than the majority of the painters whose work is shown in the art galleries of today.”

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“Not every painter has a gift for painting, in fact, many painters are disappointed when they meet with difficulties in art. Painting done under pressure by artists without the necessary talent can only give rise to formlessness, as painting is a profession that requires peace of mind. The painter must always seek the essence of things, always represent the essential characteristics and emotions of the person he is painting..”

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As quoted in The Quotable Artist (2002) by Peggy Hadden, p. 72.
undated quotes
Variant: They who are compelled to paint by force, without being in the necessary mood, can produce only ungainly works, because this profession requires an unruffled temper.

“I've always been told that I was a painter's painter... What does that mean?... That painters like my painting and the big wide world overlooks it, I suppose?... Well, I know... To me, it would have meant that - this is pre this new rage in buying and selling paintings - that, I think, that the formal values, like light, space, color, all those things that a painting is made up of, as well as the Jacob going up the ladder or Venus on the half shell or something [chuckles] would be what interested the painter. And perhaps the public would want the picture of the Christ child, so to speak. You know what I mean.”

Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) American painter

Tape number two, side A
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“That's one thing that's always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

You know? He painted it and that was it.
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“A modern painter may have many audiences or one or none; he paints in relation to none of them, though he longs for the audience of other modern painters.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

Source: 1950s, The painter and the audience' (1954), p. 107

“Every intelligent modern painter carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

Abstract Expressionism, David Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London, 1990, p. 22
1950s

“The law of aesthetics is the same as the law for our desire… Need says: "You must eat." Aesthetics says: "You can do it in a thousand different ways." Ethics: "You need a woman." Aesthetics: "Which woman do you want?" Thus the purpose of art is first and foremost ethical than aesthetic — even when the wish becomes need. The goal changes from the general to the individual from need to wish, from ethics to aesthetics.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

1949 - 1958, Speech to the Penguins' (1949)

“For the painter, for whom painting is a vital activity and a way of life — not merely a profession — such attitudes as we find in the histories are deadly. For him the only benefit, at least the deepest and most important benefit, which he can get from the study of the Masters comes from his capacity to see the painting in a thoroughly contemporary way. I mean in the present tense — the tense after all in which it was painted. Not for instance as an early this or a late that, nor as a good example of chiaroscuro or some other aesthetic or technical quality but as an immediately important human statement completely relevant to his life at the moment and convincing for that reason. If a work does not strike the painter in this way all further analysis of it will be futile.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

Italian Report (1955)

“Once again I talked with some painters, but the modern artists [in The Netherlands ] write more than they paint. If you write about art in such a way and you want to paint always with a fixed plan, then you will lose completely the deep, glorious and spontaneous art. You always have to create the new from the very deep, inside.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from German, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(original version, written by Jacoba in German:) Ich habe wieder einige Maler gesprochen, aber die Modernen [in Nederland] schreiben mehr als sie malen. Wenn man so über Kunst schreibt und immer so mit einem festen Plan malen will, dan verliert man ganz und gar die tiefe, herrliche, spontane Kunst. Man muss so ganz tief heraus immer Neuses schaffen.
in a letter to Herwarth Walden, 23 July 1915; the 'Sturm'-Archive, Berlin
very probably Jacoba is refering here to the Dutch Stijl-artists, as Piet Mondrian and Theo v. Doesburg
1910's

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Robert Motherwell 42

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