When I was young I once found a book in a Dutch translation, 'The leaves of Grass'. It was the first time a book touched me by its feeling of freedom and open spaces, the way the poet spoke of the ocean by describing a drop of water in his hand. Walt Whitman was offering the world an open hand (now we call it democracy) and my 'Monument for Walt Whitman' became this open hand with mirrors, so you can see inside yourself.
Through play, we renew contact with childhood – My art is childlike. - Karel Appel
Through play, we renew contact with childhood – My art is childlike.
- Karel Appel
My paint is like a rocket, which describes its own space. I try to make the impossible possible. What is happening I cannot foresee, it is a surprise… - Karel Appel
My paint is like a rocket, which describes its own space. I try to make the impossible possible. What is happening I cannot foresee, it is a surprise…
My brush-strokes start in nothing and they end in nothing, and in-between you find the image. - Karel Appel
My brush-strokes start in nothing and they end in nothing, and in-between you find the image.
I'm not a pessimist. Maybe I don't have a primitive feeling of happiness, that is true. Sometimes my color is happy but not the expression. - Karel Appel
I'm not a pessimist. Maybe I don't have a primitive feeling of happiness, that is true. Sometimes my color is happy but not the expression.
The duty of the artist is not to be calculating in any sense, so that he may be free himself of human emotions while carried by the universal forces … - Karel Appel
The duty of the artist is not to be calculating in any sense, so that he may be free himself of human emotions while carried by the universal forces …
I don't paint, I hit. - Karel Appel
I don't paint, I hit.
If I paint like a barbarian, it's because we live in a barbarous age - Karel Appel
If I paint like a barbarian, it's because we live in a barbarous age
As an artist you have to fight and survive the wilderness to keep your creative freedom. Creativity is very fragile. - Karel Appel
As an artist you have to fight and survive the wilderness to keep your creative freedom. Creativity is very fragile.
You have to learn it all, then forget it and start again like a child. This is the inner evolution. - Karel Appel
You have to learn it all, then forget it and start again like a child. This is the inner evolution.
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