Abstraction Quotes

249 quotes by 201 authors

Serial or sex murder, like fetishism, is a perversion of male intelligence. It is a criminal abstraction, masculine in its deranged egotism and orderliness. It… — Camille Paglia
A hint - don't paint too much direct from nature. Art is an abstraction! study nature then brood on it and treasure the creation which… — Paul Gauguin
In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping… — Reinhold Messner
The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise. — Edsger Dijkstra
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… — Alexander Calder
Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not require a belief… — Tom G. Palmer
It was only since the turn of the century that one returned to the immense role that abstraction plays in the human mind by its… — Sigfried Giedion
I expect of abstraction as much as what imagery does for me... to carry meaning. — Kay WalkingStick
Abstraction generally involves implication, suggestion and mystery, rather than obvious description. — Robert Genn
Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot physically see with his eyes... Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the… — Arshile Gorky
A conscious decision to eliminate certain details and include selective bits of personal experiences or perceptual nuances, gives the painting more of a multi-dimension than… — Wayne Thiebaud
All art is an abstraction to some degree. — Henry Moore
Art, indeed, began with abstraction. — Sigfried Giedion
If I choose abstraction over reality, it is because I consider it the lesser chaos. — Robert Breault
Abstraction is itself an abstract word and has no single meaning ... Every word in our language is abstract, because it represents something else. — Eric Maisel
The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction. — Gabriel Marcel
I like residing in abstraction. — Sufjan Stevens
Don't get stuck on the level of words. A word is no more than a means to an end. It's an abstraction. Not unlike a… — Eckhart Tolle
The physicist who states a law of nature with the aid of a mathematical formula is abstracting a real feature of a real material world,… — Hilary Putnam
At that point it certainly would be called abstract. That is to say, you had a model and there'd be one or two or three… — Lee Krasner

Who Wrote These Abstraction Quotes

201 authors contributed a total of 249 Abstraction Quotes, led by these top contributors: