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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

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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
Person
Poetry
Painter
Genius
Total
Painting
Figure
Creative
Figures
Artist
Except
Participates
Art
Speech
Personification
Doe
Exist
Represents
Persons
Poet
Extent

More quotes by Harold Rosenberg

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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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What better way to prove that you understand a subject than to make money out of it?
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In reality, however, an artist is a product of art
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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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Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it.
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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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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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Art has arrived at the paradox that tradition itself requires the occurrence of radical attacks on tradition.
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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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Both art and the artist lack identity and define themselves only through their encounter with each other.
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A painter with prestige among painters is bound to be discovered sooner or later.
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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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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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Loiter in the neighborhood of a problem. After a while a solution strolls by.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act-rather than as a space in which to reproduce, re-design, analyze or express an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.
Harold Rosenberg