Artist Quotes by Clement Greenberg

With an 'advanced' artist, it's not now possible to make a portrait.

— Clement Greenberg

The reality of art is disclosed only in experience, not in reflection upon experience.

— Clement Greenberg

All profoundly original art looks ugly at first.

— Clement Greenberg

For every good art critic there may be ten great artists.

— Clement Greenberg

Art solves nothing, either for the artist himself or for those who receive his art.

— Clement Greenberg

The superior artist is the one who knows how to be influenced.

— Clement Greenberg

Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art.

— Clement Greenberg

Complete honesty has nothing to do with 'purity' or naivety. The full truth is unattainable to naivety, and the completely honest artist…

— Clement Greenberg

You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read…

— Clement Greenberg

Not all, but too many of the best writers, composers, and artists of our time begin to be acclaimed only when they…

— Clement Greenberg

Art is a matter strictly of experience, not of principles and what counts first and last in art is quality, all other…

— Clement Greenberg

The avant-garde poet or artist tries in effect to imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own terms.

— Clement Greenberg

I don't get into 'becauses.' When you come into a studio you see a number of works. My habit is to go…

— Clement Greenberg

Nothing could be further from the authentic art of our time than the idea of a rupture of continuity. Art is -…

— Clement Greenberg

The peasant finds no "natural" urgency within himself that will drive him toward Picasso in spite of all difficulties. In the end…

— Clement Greenberg

It's as though aesthetic value, quality, could be preserved only by concentrating on 'absolute' or 'autonomous' art: thus on visual art... that…

— Clement Greenberg

The paradox in the evolution of French painting from Courbet to Cezanne is how it was brought to the verge of abstraction…

— Clement Greenberg

Where Picasso paints cause, Repin paints effect. Repin predigests art for the spectator and provides a short cut to the pleasure of…

— Clement Greenberg

It has become apparent that art can have a startling impact without really being or saying anything startling — or new. The…

— Clement Greenberg