Richard Diebenkorn Quotes & Sayings

I don't go into the studio with the idea of 'saying' something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue. — Richard Diebenkorn

'Abstract' literally means to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract ... a realistic or nonobjective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts. — Richard Diebenkorn

Mistakes can't be erased, but they move you from your present position. — Richard Diebenkorn

I keep plastering it until it comes around to what I want, in terms of all I know and think about painting now, as well as in terms of the initial observation. — Richard Diebenkorn

When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling ... But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony ... I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy. — Richard Diebenkorn

Don't be a Pollyanna! — Richard Diebenkorn

Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion. — Richard Diebenkorn

And I can just see that sometimes the technique is blasting powder rather than steady struggle. — Richard Diebenkorn

My insights come in periods of working. There are wonderful moments of surprise, but I'm superstitious enough not to want to talk about them. — Richard Diebenkorn

Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable. — Richard Diebenkorn

Maybe the given person, cup, or landscape is lost before one gets to painting. A figure exerts a continuing and unspecified influence on a painting as the canvas develops. The represented forms are loaded with psychological feeling. It can't ever just be painting. — Richard Diebenkorn

Do search, but in order to find other than what is searched for. — Richard Diebenkorn

One wants to see the artifice of the thing as well as the subject. — Richard Diebenkorn

I trust the symbol that is arrived at in the making of the painting. Meaningful symbols aren't invented as such, they are made or discovered as symbol later. — Richard Diebenkorn

I want a painting to be difficult to do. The more obstacles, obstructions, problems - if they don't overwhelm - the better. I would like to feel that I am involved at any stage of the painting with all its moments, not just this 'now' moment where a superficial grace is so available. — Richard Diebenkorn

My freedom consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings. — Richard Diebenkorn

I have found in my still-life work that I seem to be able to tell what objects are important to me by what tends to stay in the painting as it develops. — Richard Diebenkorn

Somehow don't be bored, but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential. — Richard Diebenkorn

In abstract painting, I worried about the limited range of possibilities that, as time went on, became increasingly important to me. I wanted to express or deal with differences that an all-over paint and canvas 'presence' neutralized. — Richard Diebenkorn

Don't 'discover' a subject of any kind. — Richard Diebenkorn

As a work progresses, its power to elicit and dictate response mounts. There seems to be an optimum moment when this power is at its greatest which just precedes the point where 'elicit' is no longer apt usage. 'Dictates' is the word for this condition and tyranny is the adversary. — Richard Diebenkorn

If you get an image try to destroy it. — Richard Diebenkorn

With rare exceptions, I respond most to painting that cuts across grain rather than following it. I think the artist here can get in touch with that grain rather than simply feel its flow. And he really can't cut right across it anyway. — Richard Diebenkorn

I want painting to be difficult to do. — Richard Diebenkorn

In a successful painting everything is integral - all the parts belong to the whole. If you remove an aspect or element you are removing its wholeness. — Richard Diebenkorn

Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract. — Richard Diebenkorn

My father didn't think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man. — Richard Diebenkorn

I would like the colors, their shapes and positions to be arrived at in response to and dictated by the condition of the total space at the time they are considered. — Richard Diebenkorn

All paintings start out of a mood, out of a relationship with things or people, out of a complete visual impression — Richard Diebenkorn