To end up with a canvas that is no less beautiful than the empty canvas is to begin with.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of the journey of creation as equal to the beauty of the initial idea or potential.
Robert Motherwell suggests that the process of creating art is as valuable as the untouched canvas. This implies that the creative journey, filled with experimentation and risk, can lead to a fulfilling outcome that reflects the beauty and potential that existed at the start. The development of an artwork is integral to appreciating its final form, as both the beginning and the end possess intrinsic beauty.
In practice
During an art class, I shared this quote to inspire students about the value of their creative process.
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.
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.
Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.
A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.
Photography speaks a universal language that does not need translation, and with an immediacy that the written word lacks. It freezes a moment in time, leaving an indelible image.
What would they say if they knew_x000D_ I sit for two months_x000D_ on six lines of poetry?
The film project has been “twenty years of constipation,” and he likens the Hollywood process to “trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it.”
After my performance 'The Artist is Present (2010)' at MoMA in New York, many scientists became interested in why so many people who sat across from me began to cry. I was incredibly moved by this experience also, and was very curious to know what happens in our brains when we spend time not talking, just looking at one another.
We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
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