I didn't even know that there was art until I left Texas when I was eighteen. The only painting I knew (and I didn't know it was a 'painting' until much later) was 'Hope' [of George Frederic Watts, 1886] the woman sitting on the globe with... that green [of the painting 'Hope'] you only get in reproductions]! I think that negates the idea of a painter's relation to official – old master art. It was neutral ground – that one picture – I responded to visual things...'Hope' was just sort of visual thing there, not art. (Robert Rauschenberg)

I didn't even know that there was art until I left Texas when I was eighteen. The only painting I knew (and I didn't know it was a 'painting' until much later) was 'Hope' [of George Frederic Watts, 1886] the woman sitting on the globe with... that green [of the painting 'Hope'] you only get in reproductions]! I think that negates the idea of a painter's relation to official – old master art. It was neutral ground – that one picture – I responded to visual things...'Hope' was just sort of visual thing there, not art.

Robert Rauschenberg

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art eighteen george globe green ground hope idea later left master neutral official painting picture relation sitting sort texas thing think visual woman things

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