Juan Gris Quotations

You are lost the moment you know what the result will be.

I try to make concrete that which is abstract.

I make a composition with a white and a black, and make adjustments when the white has become a paper and the black a shadow.

I prefer the emotion that corrects the rule.

Cézanne made a cylinder out of a bottle. I start from the cylinder to create a special kind of individual object. I make a bottle a particular bottle out of a cylinder.

Cubism is not a manner but an aesthetic, and even a state of mind; it is therefore inevitably connected with every manifestation of contemporary thought. It is possible to invent a technique or a manner independently, but one cannot invent the whole complexity of a state of mind.

I always pet a dog with my left hand because if he bit me I'd still have my right hand to paint with.

The instant you know what the result will be, you are lost.

Painting for me is like a fabric, all of a piece and uniform, with one set of threads as the representational, esthetic element, and the cross-threads as the technical, architectural, or abstract element. These threads are interdependent and complementary, and if one set is lacking the fabric does not exist. A picture with no representational purpose is to my mind always an incomplete technical exercise, for the only purpose of any picture is to achieve representation.