Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.
Jasper JohnsRead
One wants one's work to be the world, but of course it's never the world. The work is in the world; it never contains the whole thing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art can reflect the world but never fully encapsulate it.
In this quote, Jasper Johns speaks to the relationship between an artist's work and the world it aims to represent. He suggests that while artists aspire for their creations to embody the entirety of human experience and reality, their work ultimately serves as a fragment that interacts with the world rather than containing it completely.
Themes
ArtWorldRepresentationCreationExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about modern art, you can use this quote to illustrate the limitations of artistic expression.
More from Jasper Johns
All quotes βTo be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.
Jasper JohnsRead
The only logical thing I can think of is that I knew there were such things as artists, and I knew there were none where I lived. So I knew that to be an artist you had to be somewhere else. And I very much wanted to be somewhere else.
Jasper JohnsRead
This image of wanting to be an artist - that I would in some way become an artist -was very strong. I knew for a long, long time that that's what I would be. But nothing I ever did seemed to bring me any nearer to the condition of being an artist. And I didn't know how to do it.
Jasper JohnsRead
Sometime during the mid-50s I said, 'I am an artist.' Before that, for many years, I had said, 'I'm going to be an artist.' Then I went through a change of mind and a change of heart. What made 'going to be an artist' into 'being an artist', was, in part, a spiritual change.
Jasper JohnsRead
Make something, a kind of object, which as it changes or falls apart (dies as it were) or increases in its parts (grows as it were) offers no clue as to what its state or form or nature was at any previous time. Physical and Metaphysical. Obstinacy. Could this be a useful object?
Jasper JohnsRead
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Chinua AchebeRead
Thatβs why an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility. They may, some of them, conduct themselves flamboyantly in public. But alone with the work they are chaste and humble. They know they are not the source of the creations they bring into being. They only facilitate. They carry. They are the willing and skilled instruments of the gods and goddesses they serve.
Steven PressfieldRead