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The artist has to transcend a subject, or he loses the battle. The subject wins.
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Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) was an Native American painter. I wasn’t going to use the Native part because he had claimed at one point in his career that he was not an Indian painter nor would he ever paint Indians. Much of his work adhered to that idea but his work, in many cases, definitely reflected his experience as a Native American. His work followed the modern trails of painters like Francis Bacon and Willem de Kooning but certainly expressed his personal viewpoint and experience. It’s great work that I always enjoy taking in.
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The subject matter in his work is strong but Scholder seems to have won the battle, to have transcended pure subject. His words above are important for artists in any genre to keep in mind. I know that that this act of transcendence is something I aspire to whenever I am before the easel.
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Sometimes I win and sometimes I don’t.
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Redtree Times 
I usually find that your quotations resonate and appeal. In this instance, my initial reaction was disagreement. I even went so far as to look up the definition and etymology of transcendence, and I still disagree. Of course, that’s an emotional response that I haven’t figured out yet. Now I have something to think about at work today.
Maybe the disagreement comes in that I was looking at this strictly as a visual artist. Perhaps this comes across in a different way to a writer? For me, I see it as another way of saying what many painters have said for ages, that the key in painting is to move beyond that which is purely visible in a subject– to make the invisible visible. To make the the unknown known. That may sound like we’re having word salad for breakfast, especially in such an abridged form, but that is the transcendence that I am seeing in his words.
Glad to make you think, however. Now I have to go look up the etymology of transcendence. Hope you have a good day, Linda.
Ah, ha! “Making the unknown known” is precisely the phrase Georgia O’Keeffe used. And Lawrence Durrell had one of his characters say that the task of the artist is to “rework reality to show its significant side.” Both of those make perfect sense to me.