Look, it's my misery that I have to paint this kind of painting, it's your misery that you have to love it, and the price of the misery is thirteen hundred and fifty dollars.
Mark RothkoRead
It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quality of execution in art is more important than the subject matter.
Mark Rothko emphasizes that the technique and skill behind a painting hold greater significance than the actual subject depicted. This perspective reflects the principles of academicism in art, suggesting that a well-executed piece can elevate even the most mundane subjects to a level of appreciation and value.
Themes
ArtTechniqueExecutionAcademicismCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In an art class, a teacher might quote Rothko to encourage students to focus on their brushwork.
More from Mark Rothko
All quotes βWe favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.
Mark RothkoRead
The artist invites the spectator to take a journey within the realm of the canvas... Without taking the journey, the spectator has really missed the essential experience of the picture.
Mark RothkoRead
The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions.. the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their color relationships then you miss the point.
Mark RothkoRead
If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas.
Mark RothkoRead
Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit, and the only means of making concrete the purpose of its varied quickness and stillness.
Mark RothkoRead
Similar quotes
Our easiest approach to a definition of any aspect of fiction is always by considering the sort of demand it makes on the reader. Curiosity for the story, human feelings and a sense of value for the characters, intelligence and memory for the plot. What does fantasy ask of us? It asks us to pay something extra.
E. M. ForsterRead
If you keep eating McDonald's, you gonna get sick. You need a real home-cooked meal. And I knew that that would be healthier. And that's what Wu-Tang was: It was a home-cooked meal of hip-hop. Of the real people.
RzaRead
Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.
Franz LisztRead
The biggest thrill you can have is to tell people one of your songs, and have them be able to hum it.
Marvin HamlischRead
My work is not about "form follows function," but "form follows beauty" or, even better, "form follows feminine."
Oscar NiemeyerRead
I want my stories to be something about life that causes people to say, not, oh, isn't that the truth, but to feel some kind of reward from the writing, and that doesn't mean that it has to be a happy ending or anything, but just that everything the story tells moves the reader in such a way that you feel you are a different person when you finish.
Alice MunroRead