"A lot of people say I've brought realism back - they try to tie me up with Eakins and Winslow Homer. To my mind, they are mistaken. I honestly consider myself an abstractionist. Eakins' figures actually breathe in the frame. My people, my objects, breath in a different way; there's another core--an excitement that's definitely abstract. My god, when you really begin to peer into something, a simple object, and realize that profound meaning of that thing--if you have no emotion about it, there's no end.
...You see, I don't say, 'well, now I'm going out to find something to paint.' To hell with that. You might as well stay home and have a good glass of whiskey."
Richard Meryman interview with Andrew Wyeth, published in 1973
Posts
