Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
Octavio PazRead
Abstract painting seeks to be a pure pictorial language, and thus attempts to escape the essential impurity of all languages: the recourse to signs or forms that have meanings shared by everyone.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Abstract painting aims to create a universal visual language free from the constraints of conventional meanings.
In this quote, Octavio Paz expresses the idea that abstract painting strives to communicate through a visual medium that transcends the limitations of language. By striving for purity in pictorial representation, abstract art seeks to avoid the common symbols and meanings that are inherent in traditional forms of expression, allowing for a more personal and direct connection between the artwork and its viewer.
Themes
Abstract PaintingVisual LanguageArtCreativityExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In an art class on abstract painting, this quote could be used to inspire students to explore their individuality in their work.
More from Octavio Paz
All quotes →By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
Octavio PazRead
The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it he cannot grow or mature.
Octavio PazRead
Poetry is not a genre in harmony with the modern world; its innermost nature is hostile or indifferent to the dogmas of modern times, progress and the cult of the future.
Octavio PazRead
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
Octavio PazRead
Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.
Octavio PazRead
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One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.
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Overacting is a self-indulgence, while underacting comes either through a lack of talent or a lack of courage.
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