Alexander Calder Quotes

28 quotes in 324 categories

• To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect.
• My fingers always seem busier than my mind.
• Just as one can compose colors, or forms, so one can compose motions.
• The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model…
• To most people who look at a mobile, it's no more than a series of flat objects that move. To a few, though, it may…
• The trouble with a lot of artists today is that they have too much technique and equipment. They don't know what to do with it…
• The next step in sculpture is motion.
• My whole theory about art is the disparity that exists between form, masses and movement.
• The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof...What I mean is that the idea of…
• About my method of work: first it’s the state of mind—Elation (joy).
• A mobile is an abstract sculpture made chiefly out of sheet metal, steel rods, wire and wood. Some or all of these elements move, propelled…
• When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprise!
• The basis of everything I do is the universe.
• The first inspiration I ever had was the cosmos, the planetary system.
• The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition.
• Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It…
• Above all, art should be fun.
• That others grasp what I have in mind seems unessential, at least as long as they have something else in theirs.
• I love red so much, I almost want to paint everything red.
• The universe is real, but you can't see it. You have to imagine it.

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