Your poems are rather hard to understand, whereas your paintings are so easy. Easy? Of course-you paint flowers and girls and sunsets; things that everybody understands. I never met him. Who? Everybody. Did you ever hear of nonrepresentational painting? I am. Pardon me? I am a painter, and painting is nonrepresentational. Not all painting. No: housepainting is representational. And what does a housepainter represent? Ten dollars an hour. In other words, you don't want to be serious- It takes two to be serious.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Cummings contrasts the ease of his paintings with the difficulty of his poems, arguing that seriousness requires mutual effort.
- In plain terms
- His paintings are simple, his poems are hard; seriousness needs two people.
- What can you take from it?
- Artistic depth often demands collaboration and effort.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What makes art serious?
- Is mutual effort always required for depth?
Another view
Equating simplicity with lack of seriousness can undervalue accessible art.
More from E. E. Cummings
Why do you paint? For exactly the same reason I breathe. That's not an answer. There isn't any answer. How long hasn't there been any answer? As long as I can …
Permalink to quote #9 There are certain things in which one is unable to believe for the simple reason that he never ceases to feel them. Things of this sort- things which are alway…
Permalink to quote #11 Art is a mystery. A mystery is something immeasurable. In so far as every child and woman and man may be immeasurable, art is the mystery of every man and woma…
Permalink to quote #8
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