Quote

The worst thing you can think about when you're working is yourself.

Agnes Martin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Agnes Martin
Age: 92 †
Born: 1912
Born: March 22
Died: 2004
Died: December 16
Artist
Drawer
Painter
Agnes Bernice Martin
Worst
Working
Thing
Think
Thinking

More quotes by Agnes Martin

Image
Happiness is being on the beam with life - to feel the pull of life
Agnes Martin
Image
I'm very careful not to have ideas, because they're inaccurate.
Agnes Martin
Image
Doing what you were born to do … That's the way to be happy.
Agnes Martin
Image
When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.
Agnes Martin
Image
Any material may be used but the theme is the same and the response is the same for all artwork... we all have the same concern, but the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly
Agnes Martin
Image
It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words.
Agnes Martin
Image
The Minimalists are idealist. They want to minimise themselves in favour of the ideal. But I just can't. You see, my paintings are not cool. ... I'm very careful not to have ideas, because they're inaccurate.
Agnes Martin
Image
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.
Agnes Martin
Image
My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.
Agnes Martin
Image
I once taught art to adults in a night course. I had a woman who painted her back yard, and she said it was the first time she had ever really looked at it. I think everyone sees beauty. Art is a way to respond
Agnes Martin
Image
When I first made a grid I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision.
Agnes Martin
Image
Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind.
Agnes Martin
Image
It's through discipline and tremendous disappointment and failure that you arrive at what it is you must paint.
Agnes Martin
Image
It's not about facts, it's about feelings. It's about remembering feelings and happiness. 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 Martin
Image
I think our minds respond to things beyond this world. Take beauty: it's a very mysterious thing, isn't it? I think it's a response in our minds to perfection. It's too bad, people not realizing that their minds expand beyond this world.
Agnes Martin
Image
Beauty and happiness and life are all the same and they are pervasive, unattached and abstract and they are our only concern. They are immeasurable, completely lacking in substance. They are perfect and sublime. This is the subject matter of art.
Agnes Martin
Image
Inspiration is there all the time. For everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts whether they realize it or not.
Agnes Martin
Image
Anything can be painted without representation.
Agnes Martin
Image
That which takes us by surprise-moments of happiness-that is inspiration.
Agnes Martin
Image
Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track, I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error is not error and it all has to be done. That which seems like a false step is the next step.
Agnes Martin