A definition of art is that it makes concrete our most subtle emotions. I think the highest form of art is music. It’s the most abstract of all art expression.
AGNES MARTINThe enormous pitfall is devotion to oneself instead of to life. All works that are self-devoted are absolutely ineffective.
More Agnes Martin Quotes
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I hope I have made it clear that the work is about perfection as we are aware of it in our minds but that the paintings are very far from being perfect – completely removed in fact – even as we ourselves are.
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The adventurous state of mind is a high house… The joy of adventure is unaccountable.
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Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.
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Withdraws and makes itself up again pulls itself together with pride towers with pride rushes forward into imaginary conquest crashes in frustration withdraws with remorse and repentance pulls itself together with new resolution
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Happiness is being on the beam with life – to feel the pull of life
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Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind.
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There’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall …. Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting.
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To progress in life you must give up the things you do not like.
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I used to meditate until I learned to stop thinking.
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You can’t make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can’t make a perfect painting.
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What I say is that we’re capable of a transcendent response, and I think it makes us happy. And I do think beauty produces a transcendent response.
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Beauty and happiness and life are all the same and they are pervasive, unattached and abstract and they are our only concern.
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Any material may be used but the theme is the same and the response is the same for all artwork.
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I would like my work to be recognized as being in the classical tradition (Coptic, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese), as representing the Ideal in the mind. Classical art cannot possibly be eclectic.
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I think our minds respond to things beyond this world. Take beauty: it’s a very mysterious thing, isn’t it?
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