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in any given moment in the history of painting, they are doing what has to be done.  The layman is greatly mistaken in his universal and unconscious assumption that a painter is simply a man with greater skill who does what the layman would do if he were a painter.  One must live with, and love the art of painting all one's life before its essential problem, in any given period, even begins to appear.  In modern times the problem has been to project an experience, rich, deeply felt, and [[strikethrough]] ineffably intense [[/strikethrough]] ^[[insert]] pure, [[/insert]], without using the objects and paraphenalia, the anecdotes and propaganda of a discredited social world, [[strikethrough]] with its kings and generals, politicians and priests. [[/strikethrough]] The means [[strikethrough]] that were [[/strikethrough]] left for the painter [[strikethrough]] were [[/strikethrough]] ^[[insert]] are [[/insert]] those [[strikethrough]] primarily [[/strikethrough]] inherent his medium, its [[strikethrough]] internal [[/strikethrough]] structure, rhythm, color, and spacial interval. [[strikethrough]] In modern times alone [[/strikethrough]] With these few means, abstracted from the complex of relations that constitute [[strikethrough]] s the old painting, the expression of certain cultural assumptions that we no longer accept, [[/strikethrough]] ^[[insert]] the external world,[[insert]] modern painters have succeeded in their task, to create a painting that is rich, [[strikethrough]] deeply [[/strikethrough]] felt, and [[strikethrough]] ineffably [[/strikethrough]] pure.  The courage, inventiveness and [[strikethrough]] optimism [[/strikethrough]] faith of such painters ought to be evident, even to those for whom experience of the painting itself is not yet real. 

Robert Motherwell
East Islip, Long Island,
1 January 1951