Philip Pearlstein Quotes

#1. I decided that expressionism was a cheap way of getting a reaction - show anybody ripped apart, and you get sympathy. I was deliberately trying to show the human body as whole and relatively healthy.

Philip Pearlstein

#2. It is what is painted between the outlines that makes the difference between merely competent painting and really meaningful art.

Philip Pearlstein

#3. I get my highs from using my eyes.

Philip Pearlstein

#4. Only the mature artist who works from a model is capable of seeing the body for itself, only he has the opportunity for prolonged viewing.

Philip Pearlstein

#5. I try to find a compositional structure in the subject itself, in nature ... I rely on the angle where the wall meets the floor as a constant reference point, and against that I oppose the movements of the model's limbs.

Philip Pearlstein

#6. Look slowly and hard at something subtle and small.

Philip Pearlstein

#7. I suggest that it is the honesty of the attempt to recreate the forms and spaces visually without artistic editing that is one of the hallmarks of realist painting.

Philip Pearlstein

#8. Each work has to be done as intensely as possible.

Philip Pearlstein