Modern art history by the ARTISTS QUOTES
- for ART teachers, students, scholars
An art history of modern art, by quotes of the artists; for art teachers, students and scholars
The famous modern artists - painters, sculptors - are presented here with their sourced quotes, quotations and biography notes.
Together the artist’s quotes represent a Modern Art History, from the artist’s point of view.
Because we think these collections of artists quotes are relevant to use by art teacher and students, we tried as much as possible to give good sources with every quote. So everybody can find more literature.
To give expression to the strong interconnections and debates which exist between many artists, we made many links in the quotes and texts. Also the relations between an artist and an art movement is expressed by links. In next years the descriptions of the art movements in quotes will be enlarged
These sourced quotes illustrate in our opinion the ‘World of Art’ in which artists live, think, exchange and create. We hope you will enjoy them.
Next year we want to enlarge and improve the number of art quotes and the modern artists
If you appreciate this project as valuable for other people, please encourage our efforts with a link to http://www.quotes-famous-artists.org; we thank you for your moral support.
painter Fons Heijnsbroek ( owner / editor of this website), sculptress Anne Porcelijn (translation) and painter Gerben van der Meer (translation).
(- it is allowed and encouraged to place the collected artist quotes / quotations of modern art on this website on Wikiquote and Wikipedia -)
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Famous artist quotes / art quotations / biography notes of:
Josef Albers - Karel Appel - Hans Arp - William Baziotes - Max Beckman - Joseph Beuys - Umberto Boccioni - Georges Braque - André Breton - Paul Cézanne - Marc Chagall - Giorgio de Chirico - John Constable - Camille Corot - Eugéne Délacroix - Theo van Doesburg - Jean Dubuffet - Marcel Duchamp - Helen Frankenthaler - Caspar David Friedrich - Arshile Gorky - Adolph Gottlieb - Philip Guston - Marsden Hartley - Barbara Hepworth - Hans Hofmann - Edward Hopper - Alexej von Jawlensky - Jasper Johns - Asger Jorn - Wassily Kandinsky - Ellsworth Kelly - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Paul Klee - Yves Klein - Franz Kline - Willem de Kooning - Lee Krasner - Fernand Léger - Roy Liechtenstein - Kazimir Malevich - Franz Marc - Henri Matisse -Joan Mitchell - Paula Modersohn-Becker - Piet Mondrian - Claude Monet - Robert Motherwell - Gabriele Münter - Georgia O’Keeffe - Pablo Picasso - Gino Severini - Marianne von Werefkin
Why quotes of the famous artists to, to present a History of Modern Art
These artist’s quotes, biography notes and quotations have been collected and selected during many years; together they illustrate a history of modern art, spoken or written by the artist’s themselves. Most quotes and quotations date from between 1800 – 2000.
As Dutch artist-duo ‘Benfo’ ( Ben Vollers & Fons Heijnsbroek ) from Amsterdam we were studying these famous artist’s quotes to improve our own self-education in art. We frequently used their quotes in discussing and criticizing our own art. Soon we got the idea that the artist’s quotes could be useful for other artists as well, in fact for all people interested in or fascinated by the history and artists of modern art. For quotes of the artist him- or herself give us a look into the ‘Kitchen of art’. They are very close to the creative work itself and provide us with a colorful history of the visual arts.
We hope you will enjoy these pages. If you have any comment or suggestions, please MAIL us here.
My start in collecting artist’s quotes and quotations
Fons Heijnsbroek
It was around 2002 that for the first time I heard about Jacob Bendien, a Dutch artist living and working in Amsterdam who also reflected a lot of his time on contemporary art history in Europe. He died young from tuberculosis around 1933 in Amsterdam Jacob Bendien as a Dutch artist is not very well-known nowadays and even his work is rather unknown to most people, even in the Netherlands. We are happy that in coming years there will be an exhibition of Bendien’s art in the museum of Arnhem, the Netherlands.
I was then told that Jacob Bendien had had a great influence on other contemporary artists and art critics as for instance Hammacher. At first I couldn’t believe this because the name of Jacob Bendien was so unfamiliar to me, being an artist myself, and also to the artists I knew in Amsterdam. Then I heard of a biography on the life of Hammacher, a famous Dutch art-critic, written by Peter de Ruiter (art history teacher in Groningen University - ten years he worked on it, a hell of a job!!) and I read this book. It taught me a lot about the artistic practice in the Netherlands before World War 2 and the decades after it. But most important: I read about Jacob Bendien and he was an inspirational figure indeed for many important Dutch artists and art critics. Bendien had a unbelievable clear view on his contemporary art and on the many art movements which developed since 1880 as for instance Futurism, Dada, Cubism, famous and important artists as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Piet Mondrian, Hans Arp, Kandinsky, etc. whom he liked to quote frequently in his later publications. Here was the birth of modern art, which started with Impressionism and Paul Cézanne and Bendien was a witness to all of this, a contemporary of the artists themselves!
Bendien’s view on art history and his use of quotes of artists in modern art
So Bendien lived and worked in Paris around 1913, as many young Dutch artists and Mondrian and Picasso did at that time.There Bendien saw early Cubism exhibited in the art galleries and discussed with fellow-artists about such subjects as ‘abstract’ art, which was rather modern in those days.
After reading Hammacher’s biography I started to read the only complete book Bendien wrote on modern art (published after his death): “Richtingen in de Hedendaagsche Schilderkunst”, (= “Trends in Contemporary Painting Arts”), W.L. & J. Brusse N.V. Rotterdam, The Netherlands, MCMXXXV (= 1935). The first thing that pleased me very much: Bendien offered a lot of artist’s quotes and biography notes in his modern art history, integrated in his texts. Furthermore, he arranged his information on art and artists in a very clear and modern way, both connected as in a texture. He distinguished and compared all modern art movements very vividly. I noticed by his descriptions of the new art movements that Bendien was part of them, together with all the other artists. Now I realized very clearly that the artist in his or her work is first of all participating in life, real life.
Despite his firm arrangement of the material on the new arts and artists Bendien gave also a lot of fine texture between them. He was unbelievable keen on showing the interrelations between the art movements and illustrating these with quotes and facts. He quotes in his book all kinds of connections between the modern art movements and the artists who participated in them. SoCubism is debating with Futurism, and with Dada; Constructivism in its turn is in discussion with the artist painter Bendien himself, and with the subtle Suprematism artist Kazimir Malevich.
Bendien, himself an artist, was ‘discussing in pictures’ a lot with Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg (De Stijl), probably because they were very close to his own art conceptions, but at the same time very different because Bendien wanted to retain an emotionally recognizable figuration in his own drawings and paintings.
When Bendien got very weak because of his tuberculosis during the last years of his short life, he stayed in Amsterdam and the people who took care of him brought new paintings of Mondrian fresh from Paris. Lying in his bed Bendien could study the still smelling Mondrian’s oil paintings and he could notice every detail in them. He looked for hours on end! When people like art critic Hammacher came to visit him, Bendien taught his ‘pupils’ (several were art history teachers) how to study closely and carefully the paintings of Mondriaan and other artists. He taught them how to look at the material, constructive, compositional and spiritual layers all as a whole. I am convinced that Bendien was the artist in the Netherlands those days who had the most complete understanding of Mondrian. he even defended him against the harsh and rude theorist Mondrian with his many ‘absolute’ theories and concepts. Bendien had a very independent opinion, so he also criticized the artist Mondrian and recognized very sharply the limitations and choices of Mondrian and Van Doesburg in the rather absolute abstract ‘Stijl’ Movement.
Bendien tought me how to discover good artist’s quotations in Modern art
Bendien had a broad view on modern art history and the new art movements. He appreciated most of them because of their typical character which he described by means of the many quotations from the new art movements in their manifests and written or spoken by the artists belonging to them. So I found the first important quotes but didn’t know I would start to collect them within a few years myself. What I gradually realized was that I wanted to share with others my experiences with Bendien; Bendien’s book was old, and no reprint was available. So I decided to select typical quotes from his texts by which I wanted to portray every modern art movement. I already published them in Dutch on a new Dutch art website ‘DeKunsten’ (TheArts), which is used frequently by young students and teachers in art history. We have started to translate them in proper English, as you can see on this website in the right menu.
By selecting these quotes I realized how powerful art quotes can be as revelation of the roots of modern art history, but also how delicate this work is. How long has the quote to be? How general must it be or how many details has it to contain, to stay alive? And here I discovered the energy of the artist’s quotes for the first time and got attracted by them more and more. For instance – being an abstract painter myself – I was very touched by the way Kandinsky described in his biography quoted by Bendien how he– already an experienced painter– discovered his first ‘abstract’ painting when he came home one night. He found one of his recent paintings standing on the floor, with its back to the wall. but upside down. So he couldn’t recognize his own painting. And he loved it! He saw ‘Abstract’ art for the first time in his life and he knew he had hit upon something completely new. This was an unbelievable important moment in the history of modern art, ‘just by accident’. That kind of artist quotes are I think like stars or diamonds. Or take for example the moment that the old Mondrian in New York saw the abstract early paintings of Lee Krasner and recognized in her an important abstract painter. Or take Willem de Kooning, working a whole year already to accomplish his first ‘Woman’ painting, but not being able to finish it. And there Sapiro, a famous art history teacher, visits his studio. Nobody knows what the two were talking about. But one day later ‘The woman’ was finished! Many more ‘Women’ followed soon. What were they talking about? Nobody knows, but it worked! The first ‘Woman’ painting was finished in the next day and others followed quickly; their appearance in the New York art scene resulted in intensive debates among the artists of the New York School.
to be continued
Fons Heijnsbroek
- images of Jacob Bendien’s art on Google
- Bendien’s art in Central Museum, Utrecht
