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The big moment came when it was decided to paint...Just To Paint. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation, from Value- political, aesthetic, moral.

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
Value
Came
Gesture
Moral
Gestures
Values
Canvas
Moment
Aesthetic
Bigs
Liberation
Moments
Paint
Political
Decided

More quotes by Harold Rosenberg

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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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In reality, however, an artist is a product of art
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Avant-gardism is an addiction that can be appeased only by a revolution in permanence.
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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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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.
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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.
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An artist is a person who has invented an artist.
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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. Advanced art today is no longer a cause -it contains no moral imperative. There is no virtue in clinging to principles and standards, no vice in selling or in selling out.
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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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Abstract art as it is conceived at present is a game bequeathed to painting and sculpture by art history. One who accepts its premises must consent to limit his imagination to a depressing casuistry regarding the formal requirements of modernism.
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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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A painter with prestige among painters is bound to be discovered sooner or later.
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American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.
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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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Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself.
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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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No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.
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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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Kitsch is art that follows established rules in a time when all rules in art are put into question by each artist.
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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.
Harold Rosenberg