I don't paint to live, I live to paint.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the deep passion an artist has for their craft, indicating that their existence revolves around creating art.
Willem De Kooning's statement illustrates the profound connection between an artist and their work. It suggests that for true artists, the act of creating is not merely a means of survival but a vital aspect of their identity and essence. This compulsion to create speaks to the dedication and devotion that artists have towards their art, highlighting how it infuses their lives with purpose and meaning.
In practice
An artist might use this quote during an art exhibition to convey their dedication to their craft.
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.
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.
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.
Life is short and art is long.
A story is like something you wind out of yourself. Like a spider, it is a web you weave, and you love your story like a child.
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.
A person sets out to write a poem for a variety of reasons: to win the heart of his beloved; to express his attitude toward the reality surrounding him, be it a landscape or a state; to capture his state of mind at a given instant; to leave - as he thinks at that moment - a trace on the earth.
Great music is its own movie, already. And the challenge, as a music fan, is to keep the song as powerful as it wants to be, to not tamper with it and to somehow give it a home.
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