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Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself.

Harold Rosenberg

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Harold Rosenberg
Age: 72 †
Born: 1906
Born: February 2
Died: 1978
Died: July 11
Art Critic
Art Historian
Journalist
Philosopher
Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Create
Self
Undertakes
Engagement
Whoever
Finds
Engaged
Soon
Creating

More quotes by Harold Rosenberg

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How much the work of an artist owes to an art movement to which he belongs can never be determined exactly, if only because the movement derives its character from the individual creations of its members.
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Only through apprehending, by means of present-day creations, how art is created, can the creations of other periods be genuinely appreciated.
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What better way to prove that you understand a subject than to make money out of it?
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Art has arrived at the paradox that tradition itself requires the occurrence of radical attacks on tradition.
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The story of Americans is the story of arrested metamorphoses. Those who achieve success come to a halt and accept themselves as they are. Those who fail become resigned and accept themselves as they are.
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A painter with prestige among painters is bound to be discovered sooner or later.
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Both art and the artist lack identity and define themselves only through their encounter with each other.
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Avant-gardism is an addiction that can be appeased only by a revolution in permanence.
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The struggle to make an absolute statement in an individually conceived vocabulary accounts for the profound tensions inherent in the best modern work.
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In reality, however, an artist is a product of art
Harold Rosenberg
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No dealer, curator, buyer or critic, or any existing combination of these, can be depended on to produce a reputation that is more than a momentary flurry.
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In the United States, revolts tends to be directed against specific situations, rarely against the social structure as a whole.
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No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.
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Imitation of the art of earlier centuries, as that done by Picasso and Modigliani , is carried on not to perpetuate ancient values but to demonstrate that new aesthetic orders now prevail.
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Co-operating critics comb the studios like big-league scouts, prepared to spot the art of the future and to take lead in establishing reputations. Art historians stand by ready with cameras and notebooks to make sure every novel detail is safe for the record. The tradition of the new has reduced all other traditions to triviality.
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Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it.
Harold Rosenberg
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The aim of every authentic artist is not to conform to the history of art, but to release himself from it in order to replace it with his own history.
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Kitsch is the daily art of our time, as the vase or the hymn was for earlier generations. For the sensibility it has that arbitrariness and importance which works take on when they are no longer noticeable elements of the environment. In America kitsch is Nature. The Rocky Mountains have resembled fake art for a century.
Harold Rosenberg
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For the artist, fulfillment of self consists not in marching in the ranks of the liberators but in being entered in the roll of the Masters. The artist tends to find himself in the position of a deserter from his social group or, at best, one who collaborates, with secret reservations.
Harold Rosenberg
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The artist does not exist except as a personification, a figure of speech that represents the sum total of art itself. It is painting that is the genius of the painter, poetry of the poet, and a person is a creative artist to the extent that he participates in that genius.
Harold Rosenberg