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Realism’ has been abandoned in the search for reality: the ‘principal objective’ of abstract art is precisely this reality.

Ben Nicholson

Any ideal system is its own worst enemy, and as soon as you start to implement these visions of grandeur, they just fall apart and turn into a complete tyranny.
BEN NICHOLSON

Enemy Fall Tyrants Worst
Satire is fascinating stuff. It’s deadly serious, and when politics begin to break down, there is a drift towards satire, because it’s the only thing that makes any sense.
BEN NICHOLSON

Breaking Down Serious Stuff
The corruption of the American soul is consumerism.
BEN NICHOLSON

Consumerism Corruption Soul
Politics are beautiful. They enable a community to live collectively with one another. It’s not about stabbing each other in the back it’s about enabling people to reach their dreams and pursue happiness.
BEN NICHOLSON

Beautiful Dream People
Student journeys which were important to me were Sicily, Greece, and Egypt, where I really saw these buildings, and that is where you’re able to grasp what things mean.
BEN NICHOLSON

Country Journey Mean
If you’re into architecture and you’re from the West, everything is hors d’oeuvres for working to rebuild the Temple. Ultimately you’re led there. You can’t escape it.
BEN NICHOLSON

Architecture Temple West
I have a book of buildings from 25,000 BC. These are huts built out of mammoth bones. These buildings were beautifully made, from the bones of the body into shelter.
BEN NICHOLSON

Body Book Shelter
I’m interested in locating the holy grail of the minimum means to express the most complex ideas.
BEN NICHOLSON

Grail Holy Ideas Mean
Painting’ and ‘religious experience’ are the same thing. It is a question of the perpetual motion of a right idea.
BEN NICHOLSON

Ideas Painting Religious
I see man more as an instrument or an agent more than anything else.
BEN NICHOLSON

Agents Instruments Men
The beast for me is greed. Whether you read Dante, Swift, or any of these guys, it always boils down to the same thing: the corruption of the soul.
BEN NICHOLSON

Greed Guy Soul
I deeply believe in pluralism. I believe in the close proximity of multiple systems or agnostic systems.
BEN NICHOLSON

Agnostic Believe Pluralism
I haven’t done any building designs since the Loaf House.
BEN NICHOLSON

Design Done House
What I feel bad about is not having published very much in the last few years.
BEN NICHOLSON

Feels Lasts Years
I started producing work with an ecstatic addiction.
BEN NICHOLSON

Addiction Ecstatic Work
You can just drift unhappily towards this vision of heaven on earth, and ultimately that is what architecture is a vision of: Heaven on earth, at it’s best.
BEN NICHOLSON

Earth Heaven Vision

Realism’ has been abandoned in the search for reality: the ‘principal objective’ of abstract art is precisely this reality.

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Realism’ has been abandoned in the search for reality: the ‘principal objective’ of abstract art is precisely this reality.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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