Quote

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

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Agnes Martin
Age: 92 †
Born: 1912
Born: March 22
Died: 2004
Died: December 16
Artist
Drawer
Painter
Agnes Bernice Martin
Think
Art
Looked
Thinking
Back
Taught
Ever
Courses
Yard
Firsts
Course
Painted
First
Beauty
Yards
Really
Woman
Respond
Way
Everyone
Sees
Time
Night
Adults

More quotes by Agnes Martin

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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
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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
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It's through discipline and tremendous disappointment and failure that you arrive at what it is you must paint.
Agnes Martin
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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
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What we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy. The happiness of every living thing is what we want.
Agnes Martin
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The worst thing you can think about when you're working is yourself.
Agnes Martin
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The adventurous state of mind is a high house... The joy of adventure is unaccountable. This is the attractiveness of artwork. It is adventurous, strenuous and joyful.
Agnes Martin
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That which takes us by surprise-moments of happiness-that is inspiration.
Agnes Martin
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Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.
Agnes Martin
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Happiness is being on the beam with life - to feel the pull of life
Agnes Martin
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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
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I'm very careful not to have ideas, because they're inaccurate.
Agnes Martin
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You can't make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can't make a perfect painting.
Agnes Martin
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I used to meditate until I learned to stop thinking.
Agnes Martin
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I often paint tranquility. If you stop thinking and rest, then a little happiness comes into your mind. At perfect rest you are comfortable.
Agnes Martin
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Doing what you were born to do … That's the way to be happy.
Agnes Martin
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Anything can be painted without representation.
Agnes Martin
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I paint with my back to the world
Agnes Martin
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It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words.
Agnes Martin
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I hope I have made it clear that the work is about perfection as we are aware of it in our minds but that the paintings are very far from being perfect - completely removed in fact - even as we ourselves are.
Agnes Martin