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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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Agnes Martin
Age: 92 †
Born: 1912
Born: March 22
Died: 2004
Died: December 16
Artist
Drawer
Painter
Agnes Bernice Martin
Careful
Cool
Minimise
Painting
Inaccurate
Ideas
Idealist
Favour
Paintings
Ideal
Ideals
More quotes by Agnes Martin
Anything can be painted without representation.
Agnes Martin
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
I paint with my back to the world
Agnes Martin
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
My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.
Agnes Martin
That which takes us by surprise-moments of happiness-that is inspiration.
Agnes Martin
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
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
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
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
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
It's through discipline and tremendous disappointment and failure that you arrive at what it is you must paint.
Agnes Martin
Fulfill your potential. That's the way to happiness.
Agnes Martin
You can't make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can't make a perfect painting.
Agnes Martin
When you look in your mind you find it covered with a lot of rubbishy thoughts. You have to penetrate these and hear what your mind is telling you to do. Such work is original work.
Agnes Martin
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
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
Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind.
Agnes Martin
I'm very careful not to have ideas, because they're inaccurate.
Agnes Martin
Happiness is being on the beam with life - to feel the pull of life
Agnes Martin
