'Study the old masters. Look at nature. Watch out for armpits'. [in 1956, Reinhardt is quoting Paul Cézanne here freely] - Ad Reinhardt

The artists is responsible for his history and his nature, his history is part of his nature.

The one standard in art is oneness and fineness, rightness and purity, abstractness and evanescence. The one thing to say about art is, its breathlessness, lifelessness, deathlessness, contentlessness, formlessness, spacelessness, and timelessness. This is always the end of art.

The one question, the one principle, the one crisis in art of the twentieth century centers in the uncompromising 'purity' of art, and in the consciousness that art comes from art only, not from anything else.