Arshile Gorky Quotes

I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to - because I like to change my mind so often. The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting.

Movement is the translation of life, and if art depicts life, movement should come into art, since we are only aware of living because it moves.

Drawing is the basis of art. A bad painter cannot draw. But one who draws well can always paint.

If Picasso drips, I drip ... For a long while I was with Cezanne, and now I am with Picasso.

We are part of the world creation, and we ourselves create nothing. Our knowledge allows us to make use of all the forces already in existence, our art to interpret emotions already felt. One big war, an epidemic, and we collapse into ignorance and darkness, fit sons of chimpanzees.

If a painting of mine suits me, it is right. If it does not please me, I care not if all the great masters should approve it or the dealers buy it. They would be wrong.

I do not paint in front of but from within nature.

My recollections of Armenia open new visions for me. My art is therefore a growth art where forms, pines, shapes, memories of Armenia germinate, breathe, expand and contract, multiply and thereby create new paths for exploration.

I communicate my innermost perceptions through art.

When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting - I just stop working on it for a while.

The secret is to throw yourself into the water of life again and again, not to hang back, no reservations, risk everything, but above all strike out boldly with all you have.

Art must always remain earnest ... Art must be serious, no sarcasm, comedy. One does not laugh at a loved one.

I seek a form of language which will express my ideas for our time.