Page 30 - Studio International - February 1973

The untroubled mind I painted a painting called milk river Not freedom from social mores
freedom from mastery and slavery
Cows don't give milk if they don't have grass and
water freedom from what's dragging you down
Tremendous meaning of that is that painters Freedom from right and wrong
(Verbal and written statements by Agnes Martin
as given to and recounted by Ann Wilson.) can't give In genius Eve ate the apple of knowledge
Anything to the observer of good and evil
People get what they need from painting When you give up the idea of right and wrong
People think that painting is about color The painter need not die because of responsibility you don't get anything
It's mostly composition When you have inspiration and represent What you do is get rid of everything
It's composition that's the whole thing inspiration freedom from ideas and responsibility.
Maintenance of an atmosphere of information If you live by inspiration then you do what comes to
The classic image — The observer makes the painting. you
Two late Tang dishes, one with a flower image The painter has no responsibility to stimulate his you can't live the moral life, you have to obey destiny
one empty. The empty form goes all the way to needs You can't live the inspired life and live the conventions
heaven. The It's all an enormous process You can't make promises
classic form is about the difference — lighter weight. No suffering is unnecessary The future's a blank page
My work is anti nature All of it is only enlightening. This is life I pretended I was looking at the blank page
The four-storey mountain Ascetism is a mistake I used to look in my mind for the unwritten page
You will not think form, space, line, contour sought out of suffering is a mistake If my mind was empty enough I could see it
Just the suggestion of nature gives weight But what comes to you free is enlightening I didn't paint the plane
light and heavy I really came to painting the labyrinth I just drew this horizontal line
light like a feather I used to paint mountains here in New Mexico and I Then I found out about all the other lines
you get light enough and you levitate. thought But I realized what I liked was the horizontal line.
When I say it's alive, it's inspired my mountains looked like ant hills. Then I painted the two rectangles
alive I saw the plains driving out of New Mexico and I correct composition
if you are an inspired person thought the If there just right
inspiration and life are equivalents and they come plain had it You can't get away from what you have to do
from just the plane They arrive at an interior balance
outside. If you draw a diagonal that's loose at both ends like there shouldn't need to be anything added
Beauty was pervasive I don't like circles too expanded People see a color that's not there
inspiration is pervasive When I draw horizontals our responses are stimulated
We say this rose is beautiful you see this big plane and you have certain feelings I'm painting them for direct light
and when this rose is destroyed then we have lost like With these rectangles I didn't know at the time
something you're expanding over the plane exactly why
so that beauty has been lost Anything can be painted without representation. I painted these rectangles
when the rose is destroyed we grieve I don't believe in influence From Isaiah, about inspiration
but really beauty is unattached Unless it's you yourself following your own track surely people is grass
and a clear mind sees it Why you'd never get anywhere You go down to the river
the rose represents nature I don't believe in the eclectic you're just like me
but it isn't the rose I believe in the recurrence an orange leaf is floating
beauty is unattached; it's inspiration — it's inspiration That this is a return to classicism you're just like me
The development of sensibility, the response to beauty Classicism is not about people and it's not about the Then I drew all those rectangles. All the people were
In early childhood, when the mind is untroubled, is world. like
when We called Greek classicism Idealism those rectangles
inspiration is most possible Idealism sounds like something you can strive for they are just like grass
As a painter now They didn't strive for idealism at all That's the way to freedom
The little child just sitting in the snow Just follow what Plato has to say If you can imagine you're a grain of sand
The education of children — social development is Classicists are people that look out with their back to you know the rock ages.
contradictory the world. If you imagine that your rock
to aesthetic development. Nature is conquest, It represents something that isn't possible in the world rock of ages cleft from me
possession, More perfection than is possible in the world let me hide myself there from thee
eating, sleeping, procreation. It is not aesthetic, not it's as unsubjective as possible. you don't have to worry
the kind The ideal in America is the natural man If you can imagine that you're a rock
of inspiration I'm interested in The conqueror, the one that can accumulate all your troubles fall away
nature is the wheel. The one who overcomes disadvantages, strength, It's consolation
When you get off the wheel you're looking out courage Sand is better
You stand with your back to the turmoil Whereas inspiration, classical art depends on you're so much smaller as a grain of sand
You never rest with nature, it's a hungry thing inspiration We are so much less
every animal that you meet is hungry The Sylphides. I depend on the muses These paintings are about freedom from the cares of
not that I don't believe in eating Muses come and help me now. It exists in the mind this world,
But I just want to make the distinction between Before it's represented on paper it exists in the mind from worldliness
Art and eating The point. It doesn't exist in the world. not religion. You don't have to be religious to have
This painting I like because you can get in there and The classic is cool inspirations
rest a classical period Senility is looking back with nostalgia
The satisfaction of appetite happens to be impossible it is cool because it is impersonal senility is lack of inspiration in life
The satisfaction of appetite is frustrating the detached and impersonal. Art restimulates inspirations and awakens sensibilities
So it's always to be a little bit hungry If a person goes walking in the mountains that is not that's the function of art.
That way you contradict the necessity. detached A boy whenever he had a problem
Not that I'm for aestheticism. and impersonal. Why he's just looking back. he called this rock up out of the mud
Being detached and impersonal is related to freedom he turned into a rock
But the absolute trick in life is to find rest. That's the answer for inspiration he summoned a vision of quiet
Do you see this painting that is restful ? There's a The untroubled mind. The idea is independence and solitude
certain amount Plato says that all that exists are shadows. nothing religious in my retirement
of sentiment To a detached person the complications of the religion from my point of view
There's an effort involved life it's about the grass
You can't make the effort to be Romanesque is like chaos The grass enjoyed it when the wind blew
before nature becomes If you don't like the chaos you're a classicist It really enjoyed the wind leaning this way and that
an interpretation. If you like it you're a Romanticist So the grass thought the wind is a great comfort
If there's life in the composition it stimulates Someone said all human emotion is an idea besides that it blows the clouds here which makes rain
your life moments Well ideas we can handle In fact we owe all our self being to the wind
your happy moments; your brain is stimulated: When I was painting in New York I was not so clear We should tell the wind our gratitude
to paint my painting. about that perhaps if we fall down and abase ourselves
Saint Augustine says that milk doesn't come Now I'm very clear that the object is freedom We can get more — we can avoid suffering
from the mother not political freedom, which is the echo that's religion

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