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Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind.

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
Mind
Life
Mystery
Beauty
Eye

More quotes by 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 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
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I would like my work to be recognized as being in the classical tradition (Coptic, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese), as representing the Ideal in the mind. Classical art cannot possibly be eclectic. One must see the ideal in one's own mind. It is like a memory - an awareness -of perfection.
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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The enormous pitfall is devotion to oneself instead of to life. All works that are self-devoted are absolutely ineffective.
Agnes Martin
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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
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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
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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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Anything can be painted without representation.
Agnes Martin
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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
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The worst thing you can think about when you're working is yourself.
Agnes Martin
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My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.
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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Inspiration is there all the time. For everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts whether they realize it or not.
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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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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That which takes us by surprise-moments of happiness-that is inspiration.
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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My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They're just horizontal lines. There's not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think.
Agnes Martin
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There's nobody living who couldn't stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall .... Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting. Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it .... as you would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean.
Agnes Martin