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Quotes from Karel Appel, a gesture of colour — Karel Appel

1921–2006 Netherlands

← All quotes by Karel Appel

15 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)

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)

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

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

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

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

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)

Theories
Are the things and neither idealism
nor religions, nor histories
nor slogans.
The complexity of things themselves, that's what
theories are.. .The thing exists without showing itself,
entirely, it
does nor appear, theory is the
thing.

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

At the very moment when my ego is unprooted [uprooted?] and freed of intellectual activities and values, the realization of what is still unknown and uncreated, the silent 'non-form' unity emerges, appearing as childish schizophrenia. The indefinable beginning takes form

Karel Appel, a gesture of colour (1992)

Attribution

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