Mark Tobey Quotations

The dimension that counts for the creative person is the space he creates within himself. This inner space is closer to the infinite than the other, and it is the privilege of the balanced mind... and the search for an equilibrium is essential - to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.

We all feel a separateness; we wish that a drop of water would soften our ego; the world needs a common conscience: agreement... we must concentrate outside ourselves.

Every artist's problem today is: What will we do with the human?

On pavements and the bark of trees I have found whole worlds.

The search for an equilibrium is essential for the artist, to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.

According to one critic, my works looked like scraped billboards. I went to look at the billboards and decided that more billboards should be scraped.

You don't want to help the young too much,it will just weaken them and they'll only resent it.

Reality must be expressed by a physical symbol.

We have tried to fit man into abstraction, but he does not fit.

At a time when experimentation expresses itself in all forms of life, search becomes the only valid expression of the spirit.

White lines in movement symbolize a unifying idea which flows through the compartmented units of life bringing the consciousness of a larger relativity.

I believe that painting should come through the avenues of meditation rather than the canals of action.

The Cubists used the figure, but they broke it up..

Now it seems to me that we are in a universalising period... If we are to have world peace, we should have an understanding of all the idioms of beauty because the members of humanity who have created these idioms of beauty are going to be a part of us. And I would say that we are in a period when we are discovering and becoming acquainted with these idioms for the first time.

But there was escape, too, even in those days, for there was Whistler living in the grey mists with a faded orange moon. The nocturne transformed itself into dreamy rooms with Chopin's music creating a mood that softened the hard core of self.

There has been 32 isms since the advent of cubism, yet after all there are essentially the same two old strings, the Romantic and the Classical. We've just be confused by the storm. Science and psychology have played a great part to say nothing of sex.

An artist must find his expression closely linked to his individual experience or else follow in the old grooves resulting in lifeless forms.

Sitting on the floor of a room in Japan, looking out on a small garden with flowers blooming and dragonflies hovering in space, I suddenly felt as if I had been too long above my boots.

I've tried to decentralize and interpenetrate so that all parts of a painting are of related value...

I am accused often of too much experimentation.., but what else should I do when all other factors of man are in the same condition. I thrust forward into space as science and the rest do.

Problems are an important part of maturing--meet them straight on. Work them out. It's like the chick in the egg. It has to break through the eggshell on its own. That's how it gains its first strength. If you break the shell for the chick, you end up with a puny little runt.

We look at the mountain to see the painting, then we look at the painting to see the mountain.

All of the artists congregated at our place. My folks were an anomaly since so many of the others were gay. The young guys appreciated getting a home-cooked meal there on Sunday.