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I trust the symbol that is arrived at in the making of the painting. Meaningful symbols aren't invented as such, they are made or discovered as symbol later.

Richard Diebenkorn

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Richard Diebenkorn
Age: 70 †
Born: 1922
Born: April 22
Died: 1993
Died: March 30
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Portland
Oregon
Jr. Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Clifford
Jr. Diebenkorn
Richard
Jr. Diebenkorn
Richard Clifford Diebenkorn
Richard Clifford Diebenkorn (Junior)
Made
Symbols
Discovered
Meaningful
Later
Aren
Painting
Arrived
Trust
Symbol
Making
Invented

More quotes by Richard Diebenkorn

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I can never accomplish what I want - only what I would have wanted had I thought of it beforehand.
Richard Diebenkorn
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Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract for he must create his own work from his visual impressions. A realistic or non-objective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts.
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I want painting to be difficult to do.
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Maybe the given person, cup, or landscape is lost before one gets to painting. A figure exerts a continuing and unspecified influence on a painting as the canvas develops. The represented forms are loaded with psychological feeling. It can't ever just be painting.
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I keep plastering it until it comes around to what I want, in terms of all I know and think about painting now, as well as in terms of the initial observation.
Richard Diebenkorn
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Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.
Richard Diebenkorn
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If you get an image try to destroy it.
Richard Diebenkorn
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I have found in my still-life work that I seem to be able to tell what objects are important to me by what tends to stay in the painting as it develops.
Richard Diebenkorn
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Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.
Richard Diebenkorn
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All paintings start out of a mood, out of a relationship with things or people, out of a complete visual impression
Richard Diebenkorn
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Mistakes can't be erased, but they move you from your present position.
Richard Diebenkorn
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And I can just see that sometimes the technique is blasting powder rather than steady struggle.
Richard Diebenkorn
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My father didn't think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man. He hoped I would see my way to more serious work and would find myself turning towards medicine, law, or business.
Richard Diebenkorn
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I came to mistrust my desire to explode the picture and supercharge it in some way… what is more important is a feeling of strength in reserve – tension beneath calm.
Richard Diebenkorn
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Do search, but in order to find other than what is searched for.
Richard Diebenkorn
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I would like the colors, their shapes and positions to be arrived at in response to and dictated by the condition of the total space at the time they are considered.
Richard Diebenkorn
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My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful, the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles.
Richard Diebenkorn
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One wants to see the artifice of the thing as well as the subject.
Richard Diebenkorn
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Don't be a Pollyanna!
Richard Diebenkorn