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Themes
Inspiration & Perseverance Artists
Albers, Joseph |
The Artist's PerspectiveOn April 30, 1896, Cézanne wrote to Joachim Gasquet: "All my life I have worked to be able to earn my living, but I thought that one could do good painting without attracting attention to one's private life. Certainly, an artist wishes to raise himself intellectually as much as possible, but the man must remain obscure. The pleasure must be found in the work."* Cezanne would not be pleased with this site, I guess, but then, he was displeased with a good many things. Like many artists before me, I have gone searching for ideas, inspiration and advice within the writings, letters, speeches and interviews of other painters, both that I liked and disliked. I side with John Constable, who said, "I am anxious that the world should be inclined to look to painters for information on painting."* Many artists, of course, wrote little, but a rich body of information does exist and many fine art historians and translators have worked to make it accessible. Through words direct from the artist, one can gain insight into the ideas these painters formed and the struggles, both of art and life, they went through. The literary critic Irving Howe once said, "Each literary generation fashions its own blinkers and then insists that they allow unimpeded vision." Reading the words and experiences of artists who have been caught behind, on target, or ahead of their own generation's blinkers helps us remove our own. On this site, you will find the excerpts that caught my attention -- and I admit that my perspective is that of a painter rather than a historian. This site will grow as my readings progress. These excerpts are placed here under the Fair Use Provision of the Copyright Act for educational purposes only (*), and I highly recommend that the reader turn to the bibliography and read the referenced works in their entirety. After every excerpt you will find an asterix (*) which, by clicking on it, will take you to the referenced source. If the artist is linked to more than one source, I will also provide the name of the author/editor. There are two ways to review this site, by artist or by theme. The individual artist pages, listed at left, offer excerpts from the artist's writings and interviews, and in some cases examples of the artist's work and basic biographical information. I have also created several artist chronologies to help the reader see the context, timing, and contemporaries of these artists. [Originally created Feb 1999, Giff Constable]
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