Antoni Tapies in his artist quotes on painting - free resource, Spanish art history

Antoni Tapies in his quotes - the artist on his painting and life in modern art of Spain - free resource for pupils, students and teachers in Spanish art history

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In his artist-quotes Antoni Tàpies tells about his way of abstract painting, the poor materials he liked to use and his very personal way of seeing his paintings as ‘walls’. His art-option is that by viewing his paintings people must change!

Tapiès (1923 – 2012) was a Spanish Catalan artist, born in Barcelona. From 1947 on he started in a surrealistic painting style, but after a few years he moved into abstract-expressionistic painting.
Through the Arte Povare and under the influence of a. o. Eastern calligraphy, Antoni Tàpies consequently developed a spontaneous Abstract Expressionism in his characteristic symbolic images.
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Some selected quotes of Spanish artist Antoni Tapies - as a short introduction of his extended quotes in the PDF:

• ’Take a look at the simplest of objects. Let’s take, for example, an old chair. It seems like nothing. But think of the universe comprised within it: the sweaty hands cutting the wood that used to be a robust tree, full of energy…’ - Tapies’ quote in: ‘El joc de saber mirar’ (‘The Game of Knowing How to Look’), Antoni Tàpies, Cavall Fort, núm 82, Barcelona, Spain, gener de 1967

• ’The highest wisdom incarnated in the poorest body. And even in straw mixed with manure: the final substances in which, by a rare miracle, the origin and strength of life emerge anew. The circle closes’. - Quote of Tapies: ‘Res no és mesquí’, La pràctica de l’art, Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain: Ariel, 1970

• ’All the walls of a city, which, by family tradition, seemed so mine, witnessed the martyrdom and the inhumane repression inflicted on our people. (refering to the Franco-regime in Spain)’ - his quote, from: ‘A Report on the Wall’, by Antoni Tàpies (text translated from ‘La pràctica de l’art’), Barcelona: Ariel, 1970
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  links for selected free art-resources on Spanish artist Antoni Tapies:

  • biographical notes on Antoni Tapiès, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Tàpies
  • artist-quotes of ànd about Tapiès, Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antoni_Tàpies
  • images of the painting art of Antoni Tapiès, Wikiart: https://www.wikiart.org/en/antoni-tapies
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    editor: Fons Heijnsbroek / Matrozenhof (FotoDutch on Wikiquote):<br>[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:FotoDutch]