"When I was born 20.6.87, I was influenced by Picasso to cry. When I could walk and speak I still stood under Picasso's influence and said to my mother: 'Tom' or 'Happening', meaning the entrances of the canal under the street. My lyrical time was when I lived in the Violet Street. I never saw a violet. That was my influence by Matisse because when he painted rose I did not paint violet. As a boy of ten I stood under Mondrian's influence and built little houses with little bricks. Afterwards I stood under the influence of the Surrealists.. .I never stood under the influence of Dadaism because whereas the Dadaist created Spiegel-dadaismus on the Zurich Lake, I created MERZ on the Leine-river, under the influence of Rembrandt. Time went on, and when Hans Arp made concrete Art, I stayed Abstract. Now I do concrete Art, and Marcel Duchamp went over to the Surrealists.. ..and at all I have much fun about Art."
More by Kurt Schwitters
See allResonant Thoughts
"When I started life Hegelianism was the basis of everything: it was in the air, found expression in magazine and newspaper articles, in novels and essays, in art, in histories, in sermons, and in conv…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts…"
— Robert Gascoyne-Cecil"Discipline is the virtue that begins in obedience and flowers in self-control."
— Ted Malloch"The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air — it is a…"
— Henry George"The barrenness of sand, as it is usually pictured, was not caused by simple dryness, but apparently was due…"
— Kōbō Abe"Kierkegaard is not regarded as a philosopher, nor are Feuerbach and his pupil Nietzsche, but they are extra…"
— August Strindberg"As all regions below are replenished with living creatures... so may the heavens above be replenished with …"
— Isaac Newton

