Certainly I have made comments on American society with the various pictures and have done about nine antiwar paintings. But I did them because I was incorporating my feelings into my work.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Most people respond to my paintings quite generously, but there have been cases where I think people - a few critics in particular - were actually moved by the work but were disturbed by the feelings it evoked, so they attacked it. Some people find the realm of my work quite uncomfortable.
I wrote 'The Painted Word,' about modern art, and was denounced as reactionary. In fact, it is just a history, although a rather loaded one.
I realize that protest paintings are not exactly in vogue, but I've done many.
People either hate my paintings or they love them. There does not seem to be much middle ground.
You never know about the art world because it's a matter of opinion. If you look at old art like Rembrandt and Vermeer, it's not completely a matter of opinion. The pictures confront you, and you see exactly what it is. In modern art, a lot of it is suggestive, and it becomes a matter of opinion.
I don't have anything to say about other people's art and their work.
I have been criticized rather strenuously by painters and sculptors for not incorporating their work in our buildings.
I think there is a debate in the arts about, you know, whether we must strive for art for art's sake, and you know, kind of try to keep political debate out of our work. And to that I say, I'd like you to show me an example of, you know, this so-called apolitical art. I don't think there's any such thing.
I've had so much positive reaction and emotional fulfillment from the creation of my art and sharing it with everyday people that I never paid too much attention to the opinion of critics.
I prefer to leave the paintings to speak for themselves.