PHILIP GUSTON, quotes and statements on his painting art and life by American artist & biography stories – famous for his Klansmen paintings
Philip Guston (1903- 1974), quotes on painting art and life by the painter of Canadian origin. Guston became at first a famous artist in American Abstract Expressionism. After some years abstract gestural painting he made his definite move into a very personal and representational painting style with the characteristic ‘Guston’ symbols and objects as his Klansmen, light bulbs, shoes, cigarettes, faces and clocks. Just a few of the American Abstract expressionists like Willem De Kooning could appreciate his shift from abstract into representation. A powerful inspiration later in his life became the great painter Giorgio de Chirico .
* At the bottom more biography stories & art links for the famous American figurative painter Philip Guston.
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Philip Guston: ‘Painter in bed’ – painting, 1973 |
Philip Guston, artist quotes on his painting art and life
- What is seen and called the picture is what remains – an evidence. Even as one travels in painting towards a state of ‘unfreedom’ where only certain things can happen, unaccountably the unknown and free must appear. Usually I am on a work for a long stretch, until a moment arrives when the air of the arbitrary vanished and the paint falls into positions that feel destined. The very matter of painting – its pigment and space – is so resistant to the will, so disinclined to assert its plane and remain still. Painting seems like impossibility, with only a sign now and then of its own light. Which must be because of the narrow passage from a diagramming to that other state – corporeality. In this sense, to paint is a possessing rather than a picturing.
* Philip Guston, source of his artist quote on painting art and freedom, from: “12 Americans”, by Dorothy C.Miller, New York, 1956. p. 36.
- Frank (O’Hara, American novelist, fh) was in his most non-stop way of talking, saying that the pictures put him in mind of Tiepolo (Spanish painter, fh). Certain cupola frescoes. Suddenly I was working in an ancient building, a warehouse facing the Giudecca. The loft over the firehouse was transformed. It was filled with light reflected from the canal (1955) .
* source of Philip Guston’s artist quote on painting art in an early studio, in: ‘Ferguson’, 1999, p. 18.
- (Painting is, fh) a kind of war between the moment and the pull of memory (1959) .
* Philip Guston’s quote by the artist on the act of painting: “Abstract Expressionism”, David Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London 1990, p. 155.
- There is something ridiculous and miserly in the myth we inherit from abstract art: That painting is autonomous, pure and for itself, and therefore we habitually analyze its ingredients and define its limits. But painting is ‘impure’. It is the adjustment of ‘impurities’, which forces painting’s continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden. There are no ‘wiggly or straight lines’ or any other elements. You work until you vanish. The picture isn’t finished if they are seen.
* Philip Guston, source of his artist quotes on painting art & life: a transcript of the panel, March 1960, held at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism”, David Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London 1990, p. 61.
- There are so many things to paint in the world – in the cities – so much to see. Does art need to represent this variety and contribute to its proliferation? Can art be that free? The difficulties begin when you understand what it is that the soul will not permit the hand to make. To paint is always to start at the beginning again, yet being unable to avoid the familiar arguments about what you see yourself painting. The canvas you are working on modifies the previous ones in an unending, baffling chain which never seems to finish. What sympathy is demanded of the viewer? He is asked to ‘see’ the future links.
* Philip Guston’s artist quote on the daily inspiration to paint in his life and the position of the viewer: ‘ARTnews Annual’, October 1966, pp. 102-103 / 152-153.
- But you begin to feel as you go on working that unless painting proves its right to exist by being critical and self-judging, it has no reason to exist at all – or is not even possible. The canvas is a court where the artist is prosecutor, defendant, jury and judge. Art without a trial disappears at a glance.
* Philip Guston, source of his artist quote on painting art & life: ‘ARTnews Annual’, October 1966, pp. 102-103 / 152-153.
- To will a new form is unacceptable, because will builds distortion. Desire too, is incomplete and arbitrary. These strategies, however intimate they might become, must especially be removed to clear the way for something else – a condition somewhat unclear, but which in retrospect becomes a very precise act. This ‘thing’ is recognized only as it comes into existence. It resists analysis – and probably this is as it should be. Possibly the moral is that art cannot and should not be ‘made’.
* his artist quote on painting art & the negative will to create, to make: ‘ARTnews Annual’, October 1966, pp. 102-103 / 152-153.
- All these troubles revolve around the irritable mutual dependence of life and art – with their need and contempt for one another. Of necessity, ot create is a temporary state and cannot be possessed, because you learn and relearn that it is the lie and mask of Art and, too, its mortification, which promise a continuity. There are twenty crucial minutes in the evolution of each of my paintings. The closer I get to that time – those twenty minutes – the more intensely subjective I become – bit the more objective, too. Your eye gets sharper; you become continuously more and more critical. There is no measure I can hold on.
* source of his Guston’s artist quote on the essential moments in painting his art, in : ‘ARTnews Annual’, October 1966, pp. 102-103 / 152-153.
- I have a studio in the country – in the woods – but my paintings look more real to me than what is outdoors. You walk outside; the rocks are inert, even the clouds are inert. It makes me feel a little better. But I do have a faith that it is possible if you can move that inch.
* Philip Guston’s artist quote on the reality of his painting art, from : ‘ARTnews Annual’, October 1966, pp. 102-103 / 152-153.
- Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It’s the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe. It’s a very archaic form. Same things can be said with words, writing poetry, making sounds, music. It is a unique thing… …I think that the original revolutionary impulse behind the New York School, as I felt it anyway, and as I think my colleagues felt and the way we talked all the time, was a kind of a… …you felt as if you were driven into a corner against the wall, with no place to stand, just the place you occupied as if the act of painting was not making a picture… …it was as if you had to prove to yourself that truly the act of creation was still possible… …I felt as if I was talking to myself, having a dialectical monologue with myself to see if I could create.
* source of Philip Guston’s artist quotes on the archaic character of painting art, taken from a : transcript of a public forum at Boston university, conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 66.
- I mean that the things I felt and that I enjoyed about certain painters of the past that I liked, that inspired me, like Cézanne and Manet, that thing I enjoyed in their work, that complete losing of oneself in the work to such an extent that the work itself, even though it was a picture of a woman in front of a mirror or some dead fish on the table, the pictures of those men were no pictures to me. They felt as if a living organism was posited there on the canvas, on this surface. That’s truly to me the act of creation.
* his artist quote referring to former famous artists like Cezanne and Manet in creating paintings, in: a transcript of a public forum at Boston university, conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 66.
- I was forced and pushed into the kind of painting that I did (during the late 19-forties, early 19-fifties, fh). That is to say, the demands in this dialogue with myself – I give to it, I make some marks, it speaks to me, I speak to it, we have terrible arguments going on all night, weeks and weeks – do I really believe that? I make a mark, a few strokes, I argue with myself, not do I like or not, but is it true or not? Is that what I mean, is that what I want? .
* his artist quote on the talking in his head by Philip Guston, concerning his painting art: a transcript of a public forum at Boston university, conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 67.
- …there comes a point when something catches on the canvas, something grips on the canvas. I don’t know what it is, you can put your paint on the surface? Most of the time it looks like paint, and who the hell wants paint on a surface? But there does come a time – you take it off, put it on, goes over here, moves over a foot, as you go closer you start moving in inches not feet, half-inches – there comes a point when the paint doesn’t feel like paint. I don’t know why. Some mysterious thing happens. I think you have all experienced it… …What counts is that the paint should really disappear, otherwise its craft. That’s what I mean by something grips in a canvas. The moment that happens you are then sucked into the whole thing. Like some kind of rhythm.’ .
* Philip Guston with his artist quote on the process od painting itself and the unpredictable moment of the ‘grip’ on the canvas: a transcript of a public forum at Boston university, conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 67.
- Lots of artists who paint have that experience to one degree or another, this releases where their thinking doesn’t precede their doing. The space is shortened between thinking and doing. It’s a funny thing, what I really hate, yet I have to go through with it, is the preparation. You have to go through it, like somebody preparing for sacred vows, the sensation of you putting paint on, and it’s so boring to put paint on and to see yourself putting paint on. You’re really preparing for those few hours where some kind of umbilical cord is attached between you and it. You do it and the work is done and this cord seems to slacken, as if you left yourself there. And what a relief to leave yourself somewhere, to get out of it entirely.
* his artist quote by Philip Guston on the moment of painting, the act of painting, in: a public forum at Boston university, conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 68.
- Man is not supposed to make life. Only God can make a tree. Why should you make a living organism? You should make images of living organisms. It seems presumptuous to attempt to make a thing which breathes and pulsates right there by itself. It’s unnatural. What’s inhuman about it is, the human way to create, I think, the way we see, from part to part. You do this and then you do that, then you do that and that. Then you learn about composition, you learn about old masters, you form certain ideas about structure. But the inhuman activity of trying to make some kind of jump or leap, where even though you naturally have to paint, after all a painting is only a painting, the painting is always saying, what do you want from me, I can only be a painting, you have to go from part to part, but you shouldn’t see yourself go from part to part, that’s the whole point. That’s some kind of a leap… …I’m describing the process of painting.
* Philip Guston is describing her the characteristic process of painting, by going into a leap, his quote from: a transcript of a public forum at Boston university, 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, pp. 68-69.
- I am not interested in making a picture. Then what the hell I am interested in? I must be interested in that process that I am talking about. I don’t keep the studio very tidy. You have on the floor like cow dung in the field… …and I look down at this stuff on the floor and it’s just a lot of inert matter, inert paint. Then what is it? I look back on the canvas, and it’s not inert, it’s active, moving and living… …Why I need this kind of miracle, I don’t know it, but I need it. My conviction is that this is the act of creation to me. That’s how I have it’ .
* source of Guston’s artist quote on painting art as creation, as a miracle, in: a public forum at Boston university, 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, pp. 63-75.
- If you push it, it feels good; I don’t know what it is. It must have something to do with kinaesthesia. I feel now that I am painting I’m not drawing anything, or even representing non-objective art. You know, you can represent abstract art, too, as well as heads figures, nudes. A lot of abstract artists are just representational painters, you know that. And a lot of figurative artists are very abstract. I don’t feel as if I’m doing that. I feel more as if I’m shaping something with my hands. I feel as if I’ve always wanted to get to that state. Like a blind man in a dark room had some clay, what would he make? I end up with 2 or 3 forms on a canvas, but it gets very physical for me. I always thought I am a very spiritual man, not interested in paint, and now I discover myself to be very physical and very involved with matter. I want to be involved with how heavy things are, a balloon, how light things are, things levitating, pushing forms, make me feel as if my hand is pushing in a head, bulges out here and pushes there.
* Philip Guston’s quote on the process of painting as a way of not-doing / just happening, in: a transcript of a public forum at Boston university, conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, pp. 63-75.
- ..when I see people making ‘abstract’ painting, I think it’s just a dialogue and a dialogue isn’t enough, that is to say, there is you painting and this canvas. I think there has to be a third thing; it has to be a trialogue. Whether that third thing – it must be, to reverberate and make trouble, you have to have trouble and contradictions, it has to become complex because life is complex, emotions are complex, – whether that third element is a still life of something, or an idea or a concept, in each case it has to be a trialogue and above all has to involve you… …The real thing that matters is how involved you are in that.
* source of his artist quote, in which Philip Guston, describes painting as a trialogue with a ‘third’ thing – taken from: a transcript of a public forum at Boston university, conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, pp. 63-75.
- It is the bareness of drawing that I like. The act of drawing is what locates, suggests, discovers. At times it seems enough to draw, without the distractions of color and mass. Yet it is an old ambition to make drawing and painting one. Usually I draw in relation to my painting, what I am working on at the time. On a lucky day a surprising balance of forms and spaces will appear and I feel the drawing making itself, the image taking hold. This in turn moves me towards painting -anxious to get to the same place, with the actuality of paint and light.
* Philip Guston describes the act of drawing how he experiences it in his painting art & life, in: a transcript of a public forum at Boston university, conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966; as quoted in “Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics”, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, pp. 63-75.
not sourced artist quotes by the famous American painter Philip Guston
- I got sick and tired of all that Purity! I wanted to tell stories… (1967, quote on departing Abstract Expressionist painting style and starting his own representational painting style, circa 1945, fh).
- I should like to paint like an man who has never seen a painting, but this man – myself – lives in a museum (artist quote, Guston).
art links for more information and biography facts of the famous American artist Phillip Guston
* biography of the painter Phillip Guston, on Wikipedia
* quotes by the artist Philip Guston, in Dutch language
* 78 pictures of Guston’s art works, Collection MOMA
