Sigfried Giedion Quotes & Sayings

Naturalistic art, as we know it, is an art which imitates the appearance of things, not as they are in reality, but as they appear at one moment from the point of view of a single spectator. This is the effect of perspective. Nothing of this sort existed in prehistory. — Sigfried Giedion

The sun is mirrored even in a coffee spoon, — Sigfried Giedion

Art, indeed, began with abstraction. — Sigfried Giedion

Even when dead, the hog largely refuses to submit to the machine, — Sigfried Giedion

It was only since the turn of the century that one returned to the immense role that abstraction plays in the human mind by its power of concentration upon absolute essentials. — Sigfried Giedion

Abstraction returned as soon as artists tried to come to closer grips with reality than naturalistic representation permitted ... — Sigfried Giedion