Karel Appel Quotes

1921–2006 Netherlands

Karel Appel (April 25, 1921 – May 3, 2006) was a Dutch painter and sculptor. He was one of the early founders of the European avantgarde movement COBRA in 1948.

Netherlands
Painters

Random Karel Appel quote

36 quotes

If the stroke of the brush is so important, it is because it expresses precisely what is not there.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

The only control that I excercize [in painting] is to not throw too much paint next to the canvas.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

My brush-strokes start in nothing and they end in nothing, and in-between you find the image.

Karel Appel – the complete sculptures (1990)

I am afraid of a new barbarism which is killing
man's freedom.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

Something appears midway between order and chaos, these forms, these expressions occupy a middle position.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

The brushstroke, in painting, is purely and
simply what it is – rhythm,
color, matter.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

The true artist has no style. Style is an exterior decorative element. The true artist as servant of his matter, transcends it with an absolute freedom.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

Every day I have to be awake to escape.. .The whole world is sleepy. It is a real fight to be awake, to see everything new, for the first time in your life.

Karel Appel – the complete sculptures (1990)

A war is raging within me that burns everything. So I can begin again.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

I'm not a pessimist. Maybe I don't have a primitive feeling of happiness, that is true. Sometimes my color is happy but not the expression.

Karel Appel – the complete sculptures (1990)

Theories
are things.. .Absence and nonexistence
of theories are things.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

Pollock.. .I also feel
like an erupting volcano.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

In poetic creation there is no
question of overcoming matter, as the
idle aesthetic proclaimed
by so many people would have it – but to free matter.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

('My three year old daughter can do as much'.) Yes, it is true, but the difference is that I do it.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

The experience of the moment is what's important, and somehow the image, the 'thing' is left over.

Karel Appel – the complete sculptures (1990)

The mill is a tool for the wind
the mill is like a human being
that escapes

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

I paint like a barbarian in this barbarous time.

It is a question of expressing, at base,
the essence of the tree.. .What does not appear
in what does appear, in short.
What remains hidden, concealed,
withdraws into what appears.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

He is like an angel who floats for a little while on this planet and touches with his wings the canvas.

Through play, we renew contact with childhood - My art is childlike.

Karel Appel – the complete sculptures (1990)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Karel Appel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.