A Quote by Robert Bateman

I got serious about painting at 12, when most people give up. — © Robert Bateman
I got serious about painting at 12, when most people give up.
When I was younger, I would mess about and have a laugh with everyone. I was doing Atonement when I was about 12, and as we went to do this very serious scene, the director Joe [Wright] came up to me ... I'd been giggling right up to the beginning of the take. And he came up to me and said, "Okay, you need to be serious now." I completely idolized him.
All that stuff about flatness - it's this idea that painting is a specialized discipline and that modernist painting increasingly refers to painting and is refining the laws of painting. But who cares about painting? What we care about is that the planet is heating up, species are disappearing, there's war, and there are beautiful girls here in Brooklyn on the avenue and there's food and flowers.
I just never, ever want to give up. Most battles are won in the 11th hour, and most people give up. If you give up once, it's quite hard. If you give up a second time, it's a little bit easier. Give up a third time, it's starting to become a habit.
Sometimes you've got to tip your cap when they're painting stuff on the corner. But you can't give up, got to keep battling and make some adjustments.
When I get my hands on painting materials I don't give a damn about other people's painting... every generation must start again afresh.
If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.
The only person that can give up on you is yourself. People will always say no but you gotta keep trying. As long as you are above the ground there's opportunity. Utilize your time and be serious about your craft. Don't forget to PRACTICE! Be serious about your goals. Understand you have to be talented. Don't seek the impossible be realistic!
If we're serious about building an economy that lasts, we have got to get serious about education. We are going to have to pick up our games and raise our standards.
When I am in a painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc, because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.
The hard part about writing about a guy like John Brown is that he was so serious, and his cause was so serious, that most of what's been written about him is really serious and, in my opinion, a little bit boring.
There are absences, but there are also presences. It's about how painting can evolve its own abstractions. I didn't know the painting was going to be about that, but it has to have that journey; I have to learn something, I have to end up somewhere I didn't expect to be, otherwise, I don't think it's painting.
Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.
Like most sensible people, you probably lost interest in modern art about the time that Julian Schnabel was painting broken pieces of the crockery that his wife had thrown at him for painting broken pieces of crockery instead of painting the bathroom and hall.
I grew up on a farm with only two TV channels. I didn't grow up around much culture. When I got excited about painting, I never really got further than what would have been in a modern art history textbook.
When my family all got together, I'd always get up and entertain everyone, but it was all a bit of a joke. My first real memory of singing for people was when I was about eleven or 12.
I haven't changed my views much since I was about 12, really, I've just got a 12-year-old mentality.When I was in school I had a brother who was into Kerouac and he gave me On The Road to read when I was 12 years old. That's still been a big influence.
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