Josef Albers Quotes

I prefer to see with closed eyes.

Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.

Every perception of color is an illusion, we do not see colors as they really are. In our perception they alter one another.

Easy-to know that diamonds-are precious, Good-to learn that rubies-have depth, But more-to see that pebbles-are miraculous.

We never really perceive what color really is, as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.

Abstraction is real, probably more real than nature.

Color is like cooking. The cook puts in more or less salt, that's the difference!

As we do not see squares in nature, I thought that it is man-made. But I have corrected myself. Because squares exist in salt crystals, our daily salt.

In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continually.

Learn to see and to feel life; that is, cultivate imagination, because there are still marvels in the world, because life is a mystery and always will be. But be aware of it.

There is no difference between science and art when it comes to creativeness, productiveness, to come to conclusions and to formulations.

The purpose of art is to re-present nature, not represent it.

The role of art for me is the visualization of attitude, of the human attitude towards life, towards the world.

I've handled colour as a man should behave. You may conclude that I consider ethics and aesthetics as one.

Instead of art I have taught philosophy. Though technique for me is a big word, I never have taught how to paint. All my doing was to make people to see.

I do not like to be a prophet. I like better to paint than to predict what the next painters will do. Though I have a feeling that consideration of order is very much in the air.

Simultaneous contrast is not just a curious optical phenomenon - it is the very heart of painting.

Art problems are problems of human relationship.

In my basic courses I have always tried to develop discovery and invention which, in my opinion, are the criteria of creativeness.

I want color and form to have contradictorily functions.

It's the only dish I serve my craziness for color in.

When we are honest - that's my saying - if we are honest then we will reveal ourselves. But we do not have to make an effort to be individualistic, different from others.

Repeated similar experiments with adjacent colors will show that any ground subtracts its own hue from colors which it carries and therefore influences.

Ah, the creative process is the same secret in science as it is in art. They are all the same absolutely.

My father's parents were carpenters. They were also builders partly. They were painters. And several of them were very, active in the theatre and all such nonsense, you know.

If you don't do it my way, I suggest you commit suicide.

Traditionally art is to create and not to revive. To revive: leave that to the historians, who are looking backward.

Therefore art means: you have to believe, to have faith, that is, cultivate vision.

I count all the time on resonance. I call on this, you see.

I have invented the Thermometer style.

One line plus one line results in many meanings.

Whether something 'has color' or not is as hard to define verbally as are such questions as, 'What is music?' or 'What is musical?

I think Kandinsky and I were very near friends.

Thus art is not an object, it is an experience.

It was my family that wanted me to be a teacher. That was safe, you see. To be a painter was terrible.

Independent of harmony rules, any color 'goes' or 'works' with any other color, presupposing that their quantities are appropriate.

I was for years in the yellow period, you know.

We never really perceive what color is physically!

A thing is never seen as it really is.

I have taught my students not to apply rules or mechanical ways of seeing.

I paint the way I spread butter on pumpernickel.

In Italy the artist is a god. Now if the artist is a god, the scientist is likewise a god.

Color deceives continuously.

What has been said does not simply belong to us.

I'm not a talker. I'm a formulator.

I love very much to draw animals.

I was at the Royal Art School. That was a preparatory school specially for art teachers. You see, it was not so much for the development of artists. But we had there terribly stiff training.

Art is concerned with the HOW and not the WHAT.

When we were in the seminary we got a stipend direct from the government and for that stipend we had an obligation to stick to our teaching job for five years.

A painter paints because he has no time not to paint.