Jean Arp

“These paintings, these sculptures, my poems... should remain anonymous in the great studio of nature, like the clouds, the plants, the animals.”

“Dada aimed to destroy the reasonable deceptions of man and recover the natural and unreasonable order.”

“Sculpture should walk on the tips of its toes, unostentatious, unpretentious, and light as the spoor of an animal in snow.”

“While I was drawing, I would sometimes close my eyes. I would let my hand move at random.”

“Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's womb.”

“We do not wish to copy nature. We do not want to reproduce, we want to produce. We want to produce as a plant produces a fruit, and not reproduce.”

“Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.”