Short quote of Newman about his first 'Zip' paintings, c. 1946-1948 - Barnett Newman

It was not the inexperienced art public that became American Scenists. It was the artists themselves, a highly sophisticated group, thoroughly familiar with the art work and the art traditions of the world, who had flocked to Paris to participate in the great cultural center, who were very conscious of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists revolutions, who fell for this propaganda [to strive for a pure national American art]. It is upon them that responsibility falls. Their support of this reactionary philistinism is an inexcusable betrayal.. .It is time for the artists to wake up and re-examine their aesthetic foundations; to rid themselves of the millstone that has made art in America an expensive picture postcard-factory.. .It is time that artists refused isolationist money, repudiated the art dealers, the favor of the museum directors. It is time artists forgot about success..

Does a man want to be an artist? Is it like he wants to be a priest, or a lawyer? Is the artist that kind of profession? Or, as I once actually wrote, I think every man is an artist. An artist is a matter of my birthright... what I'd like to be is a man in the world. And I paint in order to do a painting, not to... make myself into a so-called artist... I'm impelled to do something, to say something.

Let us, rather, like the Greek writers, tear the tragedy to shreds.