Not only the artist but everyone "becomes someone else" in becoming someone. One is thought about, thus invented. Or as Steinberg put it with memorab… - Harold Rosenberg

As with other modern artists, his readings provided not an organized outlook but a kind of metaphysical hum that surrounded his mental operations. His thinking was truly systematic only when it dealt with achieving the reality of the art object as a "creation out of nothing," which was a common theme in New York art after the last war and the break with the European past.

Only through apprehending, by means of present-day creations, how art is created, can the creations of other periods be genuinely appreciated.

For the artist, fulfillment of self consists not in marching in the ranks of the liberators but in being entered in the roll of the Masters. The artist tends to find himself in the position of a deserter from his social group — or, at best, one who collaborates, with secret reservations.