Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.
Interpretation
Art enhances life, making it richer and more fulfilling.
Robert Motherwell's quote emphasizes the significance of art in our lives, suggesting that while art may not be the most critical aspect of existence, life would be lacking and less meaningful without the presence of creativity and artistic expression. It highlights the essential role of art in enriching human experiences and emotions.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of community, you might say, 'As Robert Motherwell noted, art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.'
A main part of the struggle of art has been to make an art that is direct, simple, humane, unconnected with powers that be in their essence... To the degree that it is connected with the bourgeoisie via the marketplace and so on is not necessarily an artist's problem.
To end up with a canvas that is no less beautiful than the empty canvas is to begin with.
It's not that the creative act and the critical act are simultaneous. It's more like you blurt something out and then analyze it.
Art is an experience, not an object.
There can be no 'graduated exercises in drawing' leading up to an artistic creation. That goal can be attained only through the development of mechanical technique and through the freedom of the spirit.
What I wrote all the time when I was a kid - I don't want to call it 'poetry,' because it wasn't poetry. I was not that kind of a writer. I was a rhymer. I was a fan of Dorothy Parker's, so maybe I wrote poetry to that extent, but my main focus was the humor of it, and word construction, and the slant. Your words, it's a very powerful experience.
It's no use to go and take courses in playwriting any more than it's much use taking courses in acting. Better play to a bad matinée in Hull, it will teach you much more than a year of careful instruction.
In literature imitations do not imitate.
The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!
Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.
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