“The test of an abstract picture, for me, is not my first reaction to it, but how long I can stand it hanging on the wall of a room where I am living.”

—  John Betjeman

John Piper (Penguin Books, 1944), p. 12.

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 "The test of an abstract picture, for me, is not my first reaction to it, but how long I can stand it hanging on the wal…" by John Betjeman?
John Betjeman photo
John Betjeman 30
English poet, writer and broadcaster 1906–1984

Related quotes

Vachel Lindsay photo

“Whenever I begin to write a poem or draw a picture I am, in imagination, if not in reality, back in my room where I began to draw pen-and-ink pictures and write verses in my seventeenth year.”

Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) American poet

What It Means to Be a Poet in America (1926)
Context: Whenever I begin to write a poem or draw a picture I am, in imagination, if not in reality, back in my room where I began to draw pen-and-ink pictures and write verses in my seventeenth year. Both windows of the room look down on the great Governor’s Yard of Illinois. This yard is a square block, a beautiful park. Our house is on so high a hill I can always look down upon the governor. Among my very earliest memories are those of seeing old Governor Oglesby leaning on his cane, marching about, calling his children about him.

Andy Warhol photo

“You wouldn't believe how many people will hang a picture of an electric chair in their room – especially if the color of the picture matches the curtains.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

As quoted in Geoff Nicholson (2002), Andy Warhol: A Beginner's Guide, London: Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-84620-8 [ISBN 978-0-340-84620-9]
1968 - 1974, Electric chair quote
Variant: (You wouldn't believe how many people will hang up a picture of an electric chair? especially if it matches the color of their curtains.)

Wesley Clark photo

“Unfortunately, the president’s first reaction was not, “How can I protect the troops?” It was, “How can I protect myself?””

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

He issued a Twitter denial that he knew about the bounties, then proceeded to launch irrelevant attacks at former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. As is so often the case with President Trump, the welfare of the nation and of our troops did not come up.
This is not what leadership looks like. These are not the actions of someone who serves — or even cares about — the troops to whom he has a duty. These are the actions of a man concerned with self-preservation and little else.
President Trump receives well-deserved criticism for failing to serve his country in Vietnam. Yet, given the lack of loyalty to the troops he has displayed in recent months, that might have been for the best.
President Trump's weak support of troops amid Russian bounty to Taliban shows lack of leadership (2020)

John Fante photo

“Far down the street I saw the building where Vera lived. Hanging from the wall, like a man crucified, was the bed.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust (1939), Chapter Twelve

Ellsworth Kelly photo

“My collages are only ideas for things much larger – things to cover walls. In fact all the things that I have done I would like to see much larger. I am not interested in painting as it has been accepted for so long – to hang on walls of houses as pictures. To hell with pictures – they should be the wall – even better – on the outside wall – of large buildings. Or stood up outside as billboards or a kind of modern 'icon'. We must make our art like the Egyptians, the Chinese & the African and the Island primitives – with their relation to life. It should meet the eye direct.”

Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

Quote in a letter to John Cage, 4 September 1950; as quoted in "Ellsworth Kelly, a Retrospective", ed. Diane Waldman, Guggenheim museum, New York 1997, p. 11
1950 - 1968

Erica Jong photo

“My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic
Pablo Picasso photo

“How can you expect a beholder to experience my picture as I experienced it? A picture comes to me a long time beforehand; who knows how long a time beforehand, I sensed, saw, and painted it and yet the next day even I do not understand what I have done. How can anyone penetrate my dreams, my instincts, my desires, my thought, which have taken a long time to fashion themselves and come to the surface, above all to grasp what I put there, perhaps involuntary.”

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

Richard Friedenthal, (1963, p. 260).
1930s, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

Thomas Merton photo

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author
Nicholas Sparks photo

“I am lost without you. I am soulless, a drifter without a home, a solitary bird in a flight to nowhere. I am all these things, and I am nothing at all. This, my darling, is my life without you. I long for you to show me how to live again.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Arthur Miller photo

“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

Source: The Crucible (1953)
Context: Danforth: Do you mean to deny this confession when you are free?
Proctor: I mean to deny nothing!
Danforth: Then explain to me, Mr. Proctor, why you will not let —
Proctor: [With the cry of his whole soul] Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

Related topics