Jasper Johns Quotes About Painting

Quotes about: Painting

• There was very little art in my childhood. I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had nothing of interest in it. It showed local artists, paintings of birds.

  Jasper Johns

  Art, Museums, Childhood

  "Master of few words". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. July 26, 2004.

• I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.

  Jasper Johns

  Thinking, Ideas, World

  "Trend to the Anti-Art: Targets and Flags". Newsweek 51 no. 13, p. 96, March 1958.

• Most of the power of painting comes through the manipulation of space... but I don't understand that.

  Jasper Johns

  Space, Manipulation, Painting

• There may or may not be an idea, and the meaning may just be that the painting exists.

  Jasper Johns

  Ideas, May, Painting

• To do a drawing for a painting most often means doing something very sketchy and schematic and then later making it polished.

  Jasper Johns

  Mean, Drawing, Painting

• My experience with life is that it's very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences. I guess, in painting, it would amount to different kinds of space being represented in it.

  Jasper Johns

  Differences, Space, Different

• That’s what painting does; it organizes vision in a certain way or suggests that certain things be paid attention to and certain other things not be paid attention to. It functions in that way to a certain extent in our civilization.

  Jasper Johns

  Civilization, Vision, Doe

  "New Again: Jasper Johns". Interview with Philip Smith, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 9, 2015.

• In my early work, I tried to hide my personality, my psychological state, my emotions. This was partly due to my feelings about myself and partly due to my feelings about painting at the time. I sort of stuck to my guns for a while but eventually it seemed like a losing battle. Finally one must simply drop the reserve.

  Jasper Johns

  Gun, Personality, Feelings

  Jasper Johns (1987). “Jasper Johns: The Seasons ; [exhibition] January 31-March 7, 1987, Leo Castelli Gallery”

• Donald Judd spoke of a 'neutral' surface, but what is meant? Neutrality must involve some relationship (to other ways of painting, thinking?) He would have to include these in his work to establish the neutrality of that surface. He also used 'non' or 'not' - expressive - this is an early problem - a negative solution or - expression of new sense - which can help one into - what one has not known. 'Neutral' expresses an intention.

  Jasper Johns

  Thinking, Expression, Negative

  "Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews". Book edited by Kirk Varnedoe and Christel Hollevoet, 1996.

• I think that one wants from a painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement. It has to be what you can't avoid saying.

  Jasper Johns

  Thinking, Suggestions, Finals

  Jasper Johns, Museum of Modern Art (Oxford, England) (1974). “Jasper Johns: drawings”

• Put a lot of paint & a wooden ball or other object on a board. Push to the other end of the board. Use this in a painting. - ruler on board.

  Jasper Johns

  Boards, Balls, Use

  Francis M. Naumann, Jasper Johns, Gagosian Gallery (1992). “Jasper Johns: according to what & watchman”

• I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement.

  Jasper Johns

  Thinking, Painting, Should

  Kirk Varnedoe, Jasper Johns (1996). “Jasper Johns: A Retrospective”

• Generally, I am opposed to painting which is concerned with conceptions of simplicity. Everything looks busy to me.

  Jasper Johns

  Simplicity, Looks, Painting

  Kirk Varnedoe, Jasper Johns (1996). “Jasper Johns: A Retrospective”

• Early on I was very involved with the notion of the painting as an object and tended to attack that idea from different directions.

  Jasper Johns

  Ideas, Different, Painting

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