Abstract Expressionism Quotes

“I would like to say to those who think of my pictures as serene, whether in friendship or mere observation, that I have imprisoned the most utter violence in every inch of their surface.”
― Mark Rothko

“Painters--and storytellers, including poets and playwrights and historians, they are the justices of the Supreme Court of Good and Evil, of which I am now a member, and to which you may belong someday!”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“It is impossible for a man to think of something without matching his abstract idea with physical object.”
― Joey Lawsin, Originemology

“Collage is the twentieth century's greatest innovation”
― Robert Motherwell

“All my life’s work will drain away without ever being realized. For a sculptor, working with their hands is crucial and hands must be supported by a strong and supple back. And I work with sturdy materials that need dexterity and strength to handle — metal and stone and sometimes even bricks! How do I do any of it now?”
― Radhika Mukherjee, Broken Shadows

“In my work, we find the direct consciousness of an essential humanity. Monet shared this quality and for that I prefer Monet to Cézanne....”
― Rothko, Mark

“The Latvian painter has a special love for diffused outdoor light which seems to penetrate the bodies and emanate from them," a light that reappears within, and from behind, Rothko's paintings, an illumination glimpsed through a hazy doorway or window, a light longed for but beyond reach.”
― James E.B. Breslin, Mark Rothko: A Biography

“The Latvian painter has a special love for diffused outdoor light which seems to penetrate the bodies and emanate from them," a light that reappears within, and from behind, Rothko's paintings, an illumination glimpsed through a hazy doorway or window, a light longed for but beyond reach.”
― E.B. Breslin