"There is great refinement of technique, but little indication that unless the artist has something to say there can be no distinction between right and wrong, no preference for one technique against another. By now, we start in kindergarten to overwhelm children with an endless variety of materials and tricks, which keep them distracted - distracted from the only task that counts, namely, the slow and patient and disciplined search for the one and only form that fits the underlying experience." (91)

Rudolf Arnheim

It is this sense of the persistent life force back of things which makes the eye see and the hand move in ways that result in true masterpieces. Techniques are thus created as a need." (92)

Robert Henri

"The dark mass in the sky can cease to be a thundercloud and become an interestingly shaped patch of blue color harmoniously related to the orange streaks painted around it by the sun. The saint" (speaking of a small statue) "can become a small column of whiteness, a stimulating contrast to the meandering greens around it. This disengagement of vision from its biological duty as a discoverer of meaning - far from being aesthetic - is a serious disease, which can ruin the efficiency and self-respect of whole generations of artists. The view is spread by innocent art educators and has all but succeeded recently in perverting the nature of what is known as abstract art." (93)

Rudolf Arnheim