Practically all great artists ...

Practically all great artists accept the influence of others. But... the artist with vision sees his material, chooses, changes, and by integrating what he has learned with his own experiences, finally molds something distinctly personnel.
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 Romare Bearden

Quotes from the same author

The artist has to be something like a whale swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs.
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 Romare Bearden
But no one, when you stop to think, has ever equated abstract expressionism as a movement with jazz music. It's based on improvisation. The rhythms, the personal involvement, all of this is part of the jazz experience.
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 Romare Bearden
Sometimes the mind relives things very clearly for us...There are roads out of secret places within us along which we all must move as we go to touch others.
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 Romare Bearden