Alfred Manessier on Non-Objective Art

This quote from French painter Manessier is one of my favorite all time quotes from any person of all time. I really identify and agree with the sentiment completely, and is fundamental in the philosophy behind my painting. A true artist is akin to a spiritual journeymen, a kind of mystic; losing oneself in the work only to find a truer self, and a truer reality.

"The potential today seems to me to lie in non-objective art, because through it the painter can best find his way back to reality and to an awareness of that which is essential in it."

-Alfred Manessier (1911 - 1993)

Non-Imitative Art

One of the main criticisms of abstract art is that notion that anyone could do it. Well then I say do it! Certainly there are people who produce abstract imagery cheaply and for profit (has with anything) but the artists that are creating honestly do so out of a need to create; to express one's self, as Alfred Manessier expressed with this quote:

"My pictures aim to express something my own heart has experienced and not to imitate something my eyes have seen."

(Alfred Manessier, Religious Art in the Twentieth Century, p. 196)

Even though most of us can draw and paint classically as well, the freedom to define a personal language of symbols, color, texture and ideas is much more challenging and fulfilling than recreating reality.