Art has arrived at the paradox that tradition itself requires the occurrence of radical attacks on tradition. - Harold Rosenberg

The artist is obliged to invent the self who will paint his pictures.

The struggle to make an absolute statement in an individually conceived vocabulary accounts for the profound tensions inherent in the best modern work.

Abstract art as it is conceived at present is a game bequeathed to painting and sculpture by art history. One who accepts its premises must consent to limit his imagination to a depressing casuistry regarding the formal requirements of modernism.