I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint? It might be things, thoughts, a memory, sensations, which have nothing to do directly with painting itself. They can come from anything and… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
That's what I mean by something grips in a canvas. The moment that happens you are then sucked into the whole thing. Like some… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
Then you learn about composition, you learn about old masters, you form certain ideas about structure. But the inhuman activity of trying to make… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
I go to the studio everyday because one day I may go and the Angel will be there. What if I don't go and… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
Sometimes I scrape off a lot. You have on the floor, like cow dung in the field, this big glob of paint... and it's… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
Painting seems like impossibility, with only a sign now and then of its own light. — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
Many works of the past complete what they announce they are going to do, to our increasing boredom. Certain others plague me because I… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
Probably the most potent desire for a painter, an image-maker, is to see it. To see what the mind can think and imagine, to… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
No good to paint in the head - what happens is what happens when you put the paint down - you can only hope… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
The canvas you are working on modifies the previous ones in an unending, baffling chain which never seems to finish. What sympathy is demanded… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
I do not see why the loss of faith in the known image and symbol in our time should be celebrated as a freedom.… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
The things I felt... about certain painters of the past that... inspired me, like Cezanne and Manet... that complete losing of oneself in the… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
I am a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over. — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
Usually I am on a work for a long stretch, until a moment arrives when the air of the arbitrary vanishes, and the paint… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
All these troubles revolve around the irritable mutual dependence of life and art - with their need and contempt for one another. Of necessity,… — Philip Guston Copy Share Image
