“A real painting is something which happens to the painter once in a given minute”
X magazine (1959-62)
Context: The Art of painting is itself an intensely personal activity. It may be labouring the obvious to say so but it is too little recognised in art journalism now that a picture is a unique and private event in the life of the painter: an object made alone with a man and a blank canvas... A real painting is something which happens to the painter once in a given minute; it is unique in that it will never happen again and in this sense is an impossible object. It is judged by the painter simply as a success or failure without qualification. And it is something which happens in life not in art: a picture which was merely the product of art would not be very interesting and could tell us nothing we were not already aware of. The old saying, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”, expresses the opposite idea to that which animates the painter before his canvas. It is precisely what he does not know which may destroy him.
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Patrick Swift60
British artist 1927–1983Related quotes
“No real painter ever wants be known through any other medium than his painting.”
Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist
The Artist Speaks (1951)
Lucian Freud (1922–2011) British painter and engraver
Interview with Martin Gayford, Independent on Sunday 26 May 2002
Other
“This is not something insignificant. This is real. This is happening, and this is ours.”
David Levithan (1972) American author and editor
Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)
letter to his friend Don Martín Zapater https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3915977, June 1786; as quoted by Robert Hughes, in: Goya. Borzoi Book - Alfred Knopf, New York, 2003, p. 81 <br class="br">Goya was already forty then; the four painters should paint the designs of all the new tapestries for the royal palace; their designs were then woven in the Royal Tapestry Factory <br class="br">1780s
“A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.”
Leopold Stokowski (1882–1977) British conductor
Addressing an audience at Carnegie Hall, as quoted in The New York Times (11 May 1967); often this is quoted without the humorous final sentence.
Context: A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence.
Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic
Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 237-9, "Reality Again: The New Photorealism"
James Rosenquist (1933–2017) American artist
Quoted in Brian Sherwin, "Art Space Talk: James Rosenquist," http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2008/04/art-space-talk-james-rosenquist.html myartspace.com (2008-04-04)
“Painting it's a blind man profession. Painter is painting not what he sees but what he feels.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter
As quoted in The Quotable Artist (2002) by Peggy Hadden, p. 71.
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.