Surrealism, is interested in a dream world that will penetrate the human psyche. - Barnett Newman

The present painter is concerned not with his own feelings or with the mystery of his own personality but with the penetration into the world-mystery. His imagination is therefore attempting to dig into metaphysical secrets.

[Concerning all painters] working in what is known as the abstract style: [the abstract form] is a living thing.. ..a carrier of the awesome feelings he felt before the unknowable [common quote of Barnett Newman, Clifford Still, and Mark Rothko, 1947]

All artists whether primitive or sophisticated, have been involved in the handling of chaos.