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.
Interpretation
Creativity involves spontaneous expression followed by critical reflection.
In this quote, Robert Motherwell emphasizes the dichotomy between the creative process and critical evaluation. He suggests that creativity often starts with a free-flowing expression or idea, which is then followed by a careful analysis and critique, highlighting the importance of both aspects in the artistic journey.
In practice
This quote can be used in a workshop on developing artistic skills to show the importance of balancing creativity and critique.
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.
Art is an experience, not an object.
Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.
What pleases the public is lively and vivid delineation which makes no demands on the intellect; but passionate and absolutist youth can only be enthralled by a problem.
We worked the medley on side two of "Abbey Road" out carefully in advance. All of those mini songs were partly completed tunes; some were written while we were in India a year before. So there was just a bit of chorus here and a verse there. We welded them all together into a routine.
So when I realised I could sing for a living - do what I loved and be paid for it - I thought, 'This is unbelievable. Unbelievable!' And that feeling has never left me.
The artist doesn't really think about consequences - he or she does the work, stands back and looks at and thinks, 'Hmm, that could have worked better like this.' But as a person who needs to sell tickets to do the next work, one needs to analyze how it does or does not hit its mark.
I believe that music is a spiritual language. My everyday self is pretty mundane and boring, but when I'm making music it allows for me to communicate a kind of transcendence that I can't communicate otherwise.
Beauty always takes place in the particular, and if there are no particulars, the chances of seeing it go down
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