"Only by chancing the ridiculous, can I hope for the sublime. Only by discovering that which is true within myself, can I hope to be understood by others. I regard myself as an expressionist as well as a symbolist. If expressionism implies emotional impact, I can realize it only by restraint and ultimate refinement." Jay DeFeo, catalogue statement, "Sixteen Americans, " Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1959 "['The Rose'] passed through several stages, each one of them valid. There was a kind of archaic version at six months; then followed a very developed geometric version which gradually transformed itself into a much more organic expression. Curiously, this stage got thoroughly out of hand at one point baroque), and I managed to pull it all the way back to the final 'classic' 'Rose.' I suspect that even if I had had the space to spread out these ideas on separate canvases, the work would have proceeded on a single format alone, in as much as I felt the painting had to experience its own life-span in time." Jay DeFeo, letter to Henry Hopkins, June 1978.

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