Arshile Gorky Quotes

I seek a form of language which will express my ideas for our time.

Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot physically see with his eyes... Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite. It is the emancipation of the mind. It is an explosion into unknown areas.

The secret is to throw yourself into the water of life again and again, not to hang back, no reservations, risk everything, but above all strike out boldly with all you have.

Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot see physically with his eyes.

The eyes of the Armenians speak long before the lips move and long after they cease to.

I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to - because I like to change my mind so often. The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting.

When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting - I just stop working on it for a while.

The stuff of thought is the seed of the artist. Dreams form the bristles of the artist's brush. As the eye functions as the brain's sentry, I communicate my innermost perceptions through the art, my worldview.

Art must always remain earnest... Art must be serious, no sarcasm, comedy. One does not laugh at a loved one.

Movement is the translation of life, and if art depicts life, movement should come into art, since we are only aware of living because it moves.

Dreams form the bristles of the artist's brush.

Drawing is the basis of art. A bad painter cannot draw. But one who draws well can always paint.

If Picasso drips, I drip... For a long while I was with Cezanne, and now I am with Picasso.

I do not paint in front of but from within nature.

We are part of the world creation, and we ourselves create nothing. Our knowledge allows us to make use of all the forces already in existence, our art to interpret emotions already felt. One big war, an epidemic, and we collapse into ignorance and darkness, fit sons of chimpanzees.

My recollections of Armenia open new visions for me. My art is therefore a growth art where forms, pines, shapes, memories of Armenia germinate, breathe, expand and contract, multiply and thereby create new paths for exploration.

I communicate my innermost perceptions through art.

You know how fussy and particular I am in painting. I am ever removing the paint and repainting the spot until I am completely exhausted.

If a painting of mine suits me, it is right. If it does not please me, I care not if all the great masters should approve it or the dealers buy it. They would be wrong.