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| Jean Étienne Liotard Portrait of Madame Jean Tronchin 1758 pastel on vellum Louvre |
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| Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun Woman's head 1780 pastel on paper École des Beaux-Arts, Paris |
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| Jacques-Louis David Head of Marat (after death) 1793 drawing Musée National du Château de Versailles |
IRVING SANDLER: What would you like your pictures to convey?
AGNES MARTIN: I would like them to represent beauty, innocence and happiness; I would like them all to represent that. Exaltation.
IRVING SANDLER: You also think of your art as classical, because it is detached from the world, cool and untroubled, and strives for perfection and freedom from whatever drags people down. Do you think of your painting as continuing a classical tradition in the history of art?
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| Gaetano Gandolfi Study of a young woman 1777 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Mauro Gandolfi Study of an elderly man 18th century oil on canvas private collection |
AGNES MARTIN: No, I just hope I have the classical attitude.
IRVING SANDLER: At the same time that you value a detached and cool art, you require that your art express feeling. It is commonly thought that detachment and feeling are antithetical, yet you would like to bring them together.
AGNES MARTIN: I think that personal feelings, sentimentality and those sorts of emotions, are not art but that universal emotions like happiness are art. I am particularly interested in the abstract emotions that we feel when we listen to music.
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| Arnold Boonen Portrait of Jan van Huysum, flower-painter ca. 1720 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum |
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| Giuseppe Maria Crespi Portrait of Count Fulvio Grati ca. 1720-23 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Johan Zoffany Portrait of Ann Brown in the role of Miranda ca. 1770 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Johan Zoffany Portrait of Archduchess Amalia of Austria 1770s oil on canvas private collection |
IRVING SANDLER: Today, there are many artists who view modern life as a series of disasters – two world wars, the holocaust, rabid nationalism, ecological devastation – and who believe that the future will be no better. These artists attempt to embody this negative outlook in their art. Has this kind of expression a place in art in your view?
AGNES MARTIN: I don't respect their negative art, I think it's illustration. I consider exaltation to be the theme of art and life.
IRVING SANDLER: Your art is non-objective which, as you have written, is of extreme importance to you.
AGNES MARTIN: I think that the abstract emotions of which we are not conscious are tremendously important, especially since they are all positive. I mean they are happy emotions that we only feel when we get away from daily care and turn away from this common life. I don't think human welfare and comfort are the artist's responsibility. I mean every other activity, every other kind of work contributes to human welfare and comfort. But art has no time for that materialistic area. The reason I think that music is the highest form of art is because it manages to represent all our abstract emotions. I don't think that artists should be involved in political life because it's so distracting.
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| Gaspare Traversi The Sitting 1754 oil on canvas Louvre |
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| Anton Raphael Mengs Portrait of Pope Clement XIII Rezzonico 1758 oil on canvas Ca' Rezzonico, Venice |
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| Jacques-Louis David Portrait of Dr Alphonse Leroy 1783 canvas Musée Fabre, Montpellier |
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| Jacopo Amigoni Portrait of a lady 18th century oil on canvas private collection |
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| Pierre Gobert Portrait of the Duchess of Modena as Hébé early 18th century oil on canvas Musée National du Château de Versailles |
– quoted passages are excerpted from a 1993 interview with Agnes Martin (1912-2004) reprinted in Talking Art : Interviews with Artists since 1976 (London, 2007)