“A painting by Newman is finally no simpler than one by Cezanne.”

— Donald Judd

Source: 1960s, "Specific Objects," 1965, p. 77. Partly quoted in: Washington Gallery of Modern Art (Washington, D.C.), ‎Barbara Rose (1967) New aesthetic: Exhibition May 6-June 25, 1967. p. 45
Context: A work needs only to be interesting. Most works finally have one quality. In earlier art the complexity was displayed and built the quality. In recent painting the complexity was in the format and the few main shapes, which had been made according to various interests and problems. A painting by Newman is finally no simpler than one by Cezanne. In the three-dimensional work the whole thing is made according to complex purposes, and these are not scattered but asserted by one form. It isn't necessary for a work to have a lot of things to look at, to compare, to analyze one by one, to contemplate. The thing as a whole, its quality as a whole, is what is interesting. The main things are alone and are more intense, clear and powerful.

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Donald Judd33

artist 1928–1994

Barnett Newman (1905–1970) American artist

1940 - 1950

“[.. feel interested in] Things that are not overworked, that are in essence light. In other words, the great Cezannes that are not all filled in.... while I can recognize a master piece that is heavily painted or darkly painted or painted in layers as great and sublime, it would not be my choice to hang a - [inaudible] - for five years if I could instead perhaps have a Cezanne of the kind I just described. Or a certain kind of Matisse. Or one of those large Rubens sketches, where the first breath of feeling is the picture, rather than the labor and the gift.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

quote about 'light' paintings
1960s, Interview with Barbara Rose', Archives - American Art, 1968

“There's always been a trend toward simpler painting and it was bound to happen one way or another. Whenever painting gets complicated, like Abstract Expressionism, or surrealism, there's going to be someone who's not painting complicated paintings, someone who's trying to simplify…”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Source: Quotes, 1960 - 1970, The Pratt lecture (1960), p. 117

“Cubism taught me much and the principle of Pissarro, furthered by Seurat, taught me more. These with Cezanne are the great logicians of color.
No one will ever paint like Cezanne for example, because no one will ever have his peculiar visual gifts; or to put it less dogmatically, will anyone ever appear again with so peculiar and almost unbelievable a faculty for dividing color sensations and making logical realizations of them? Has anyone ever placed his color more reasonably with more of a sense of time and measure than he? I think not, and he furnished for the enthusiast of today new reasons for research into the realm of color for itself.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

n.p.
1921 - 1930, Art and the Personal Life', Marsden Hartley, 1928

“Sylvester: When was it that you first did a painting with one or two simple lines, horizontal or vertical, across the surface?
Newman: I would say that it began in '46— '47. In those years, whenever I did a painting with one or two elements in it, it did always have a sense of an atmospheric background, I suppose — with the exception of a painting which I called Euclidian Abyss, where the background is black and has some of the white coming through, but there's no true atmosphere.”

Barnett Newman (1905–1970) American artist

Source: 1960 - 1970, Interview with David Sylvester 2. Spring 1965, p. 255

“You can't ask a man to talk sensibly about the art of painting if he simply doesn't know anything about it. But by God, how can he [ Zola was his youth friend, who used Cezanne as a model in Zola's novel 'L'Oeuvre'] dare to say that a painter is done because he has painted one bad picture? When a picture isn't realized, you pitch it in the fire and start another one.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote in a conversation with Vollard in Cezanne's studio in Aix - after the death of Zola in 1902; as quoted in Cézanne, Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, p. 74
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900

“In Braque and Gris, they seemed to have idea of the organization beforehand in their mind. With Bonnard, he is organizing in front of you. You can tell in Leger just when he discovered how to make it like an engine.... What's wrong with that? You see it in Barney (=Barnett Newman) too, that he knows what a painting should be. He paints as he thinks painting should be, which is pretty heroic..”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

1950's, Evergreen Review, 1958