Im interested in what would normally be considered the worst aspects of commercial art. I think its the tension between what seems to be so rigid and cliched and the fact that art really cant be this way.
Interpretation
Roy Lichtenstein reflects on the tension in commercial art between its rigid nature and the freedom of artistic expression.
In this quote, Roy Lichtenstein discusses the paradox found in commercial art, where typical conventions and clichéd forms create a seemingly rigid framework. However, he emphasizes that true art transcends these constraints, highlighting the inherent conflicts that arise when artistic expression is subjected to the limitations of commercial expectations.
In practice
In a discussion on the evolution of art at a gallery opening.
I don't know why you'd want to say your work comes from nature, because art is related to perception, not nature. All abstract artists try to tell you that what they do comes from nature, and I'm always trying to tell you that what I do is completely abstract. We're both saying something we want to be true.
Making something good and saying something brilliant are not two things. When you make your own statement, there is a higher energy level, and you do better painting.
I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next.
I always like to see if the art across the street is better than mine.
I never approved of talkies. Silent movies were well on their way to developing an entirely new art form. It was not just pantomine, but something wonderfully expressive.
One of the things that I tell beginning writers is this: If you describe a landscape, or a cityscape, or a seascape, always be sure to put a human figure somewhere in the scene. Why? Because readers are human beings, mostly interested in human beings. People are humanists. Most of them are humanists, that is.
And you who wish to represent by words the form of man and all the aspects of his membrification, relinquish that idea. For the more minutely you describe the more you will confine the mind of the reader, and the more you will keep him from the knowledge of the thing described. And so it is necessary to draw and to describe.
I think theater ought to be theatrical ... you know, shuffling the pack in different ways so that it's -- there's always some kind of ambush involved in the experience. You're being ambushed by an unexpected word, or by an elephant falling out of the cupboard, whatever it is.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.