Juan Gris Quotes

Cubism is not a manner but an aesthetic, and even a state of mind; it is therefore inevitably connected with every manifestation of contemporary thought. It is possible to invent a technique or a manner independently, but one cannot invent the whole complexity of a state of mind.

The instant you know what the result will be, you are lost.

I always pet a dog with my left hand because if he bit me I'd still have my right hand to paint with.

I try to make concrete that which is abstract.

Painting for me is like a fabric, all of a piece and uniform, with one set of threads as the representational, esthetic element, and the cross-threads as the technical, architectural, or abstract element. These threads are interdependent and complementary, and if one set is lacking the fabric does not exist. A picture with no representational purpose is to my mind always an incomplete technical exercise, for the only purpose of any picture is to achieve representation.

I prefer the emotion that corrects the rule.

Cézanne made a cylinder out of a bottle. I start from the cylinder to create a special kind of individual object. I make a bottle a particular bottle out of a cylinder.

I make a composition with a white and a black, and make adjustments when the white has become a paper and the black a shadow.