The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that rather than imposing order onto nature, we should focus on finding order within ourselves.
Willem De Kooning highlights the misconception that artists impose their own order on the chaotic elements of nature. He argues that true artistry lies not in controlling the external environment, but in achieving a sense of internal order and clarity. This perspective invites individuals to introspect and harmonize their internal chaos rather than attempting to manipulate the world around them, emphasizing self-reflection as a path to artistic expression and understanding.
In practice
This quote could be shared during an art workshop to encourage participants to explore their internal landscape.
I paint the way I do because I can keep on putting more and more things in - like drama, pain, anger, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas of space. It doesn't matter if it differs from mine, as long as it comes from the painting, which has its own integrity and intensity.
I don't paint to live, I live to paint.
Spiritually I am wherever my spirit allows me to be, and that is not necessarily in the future... Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure.
Im not someone whos ever said anything definitive about his work. In my life also I have very little fixed form. I can change overnight.
Art should not have to be a certain way.
My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.
Verse in itself does not constitute poetry. Verse is only an elegant vestment for a beautiful form. Poetry can express itself in prose, but it does so more perfectly under the grace and majesty of verse. It is poetry of soul that inspires noble sentiments and noble actions as well as noble writings.
I like silence. Aesthetically, I feel strangled by the fast cutting and a wall of sound. And I think showing black people thinking onscreen is radical.
I think all creative people are operating from the fear that, of the best of what they did, will anybody remember it? Will anybody tell stories about them? Will anybody keep those pictures on the mantle long after they are gone? It's why people write stories. It's peoples' grave markers.
The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.
Do you know what I've learned? That although ecstasy is the ability to stand outside yourself, dance is a way of rising up into space, of discovering new dimensions while still remaining in touch with your body. When you dance, the spiritual world and the real world manage to coexist quite happily. I think classical ballet dancers dance on pointe because they're simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies.
I don't think in art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one and terrifying and threatening and bursting with hope.
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