Arshile Gorky Quotes

#1. 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.

Arshile Gorky

#2. 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.

Arshile Gorky

#3. 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.

Arshile Gorky

#4. The eyes of the Armenians speak long before the lips move and long after they cease to.

Arshile Gorky

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

Arshile Gorky

#6. Dreams form the bristles of the artist's brush.

Arshile Gorky

#7. 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.

Arshile Gorky

#8. The stuff of thought is the seed of the artist. Dreams form the bristles of the artist's brush. As the eye functions as the brain's sentry, I communicate my innermost perceptions through the art, my worldview.

Arshile Gorky

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

Arshile Gorky

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

Arshile Gorky

#11. Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot see physically with his eyes ... Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite. It is the emancipation of the mind. It is an exploration into unknown areas.

Arshile Gorky

#12. 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.

Arshile Gorky

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

Arshile Gorky

#14. 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.

Arshile Gorky

#15. You know how fussy and particular I am in painting. I am ever removing the paint and repainting the spot until I am completely exhausted.

Arshile Gorky

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

Arshile Gorky

#17. I communicate my innermost perceptions through art.

Arshile Gorky