Piet Mondrian Quotes

All that is base in the masses is temporary, no doubt serving only to prevent evolution (that of the elite, as well) from proceeding too quickly and thus not becoming 'reality.'

Vertical and horizontal lines are the expression of two opposing forces; they exist everywhere and dominate everything; their reciprocal action constitutes 'life'. I recognized that the equilibrium of any particular aspect of nature rests on the equivalence of its opposites.

Let us note that art - even on an abstract level - has never been confined to 'idea'; art has always been the 'realized' expression of equilibrium.

Reality only appears to us tragical because of the disequilibrium and confusion of its appearances.

The subjectivization of the universal in art brings the universal downward on one hand, while on the other it helps raise the individual toward the universal.

The only problem in art is to achieve a balance between subjective and objective.

The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.
Piet Mondrian
The Artist's Way A Spiritual Path to Greater Creativity by Julia Cameron

Art on the contrary sought this harmony in practice (of art itself). More and more in its creations it has given inwardness to that what surrounds us in nature, until, in Neo-Plasticism, nature is no longer dominant. This achievement of balance may prepare the way for the fulfilment of man and signal the end of (what we call) art. (1921/23

Why should art continue to follow nature when every other field has left nature behind?

The artist sees the tragic to such a degree that he is compelled to express the non-tragic.

I do not know how I shall develop, but for the present, I am continuing to work within ordinary, generally known terrain, different only because of a deep substratum, which leads those who are receptive to sense the finer regions.

Experience was my only teacher; I knew little of the modern art movement. When I first saw the works of the Impressionists, van Gogh, van Dongen, and Fauves, I admired it. But I had to seek the true way alone.

We must look not to the negative (the misery, the bestial in life), although we undergo it and sympathize with it, but rather to the burgeoning life around us, which is strengthened by the negative.

Non-figurative art is created by establishing a dynamic rhythm of determinate mutual relations which excludes the formation of any particular form.

Everything is expressed through relationship. Colour can exist only through other colours, dimension through other dimensions, position through other positions that oppose them. That is why I regard relationship as the principal thing.

Curves are so emotional.

The natural does not have to be a specific representation. I am now working on a thing which is a reconstruction of a starry sky, yet I make it, nevertheless, without a given in nature.

I am only satisfied insofar as I feel 'Broadway Boogie Woogie' is a definite progress, but even about this picture I am not quite satisfied. There is still too much of the old in it.

Things are beautiful or ugly only in time and space. The new man's vision being liberated from these two factors, all is unified in one unique beauty.

It is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true.

All individual thought is dissolved in universal thought, as all form is dissolved in the universal plastic means of Abstract-Real painting.

What is natural does not have to be a representation of something. I'm now working on a thing that is a reconstruction of a starry sky, and yet I'm making it without a given from nature. Someone who says he uses a theme from nature can be right, but also someone who says he uses nothing at all.

The relation of color and the relation of proportion are both based on the relation of position.

Only conscious man can mirror the universal: he can consciously become one with the universal and so can consciously transcend the individual.

The colored planes, as much by position and dimension as by the greater value given to color, plastically express only relationships and not forms.

Dance, theatre, etc. as art, will disappear along with the dominating 'expression' of tragedy and harmony: the movement of life itself will become harmonious.

If you follow nature you will not be able to vanquish the tragic in any real degree in your art ... We must free ourselves from our attachment to the external, for only then do we transcend the tragic, and are enabled consciously to contemplate the repose which is within all things.

If the paying public demands naturalistic art, then an artist can use his skills to produce such pictures - but these are to be clearly distinguished from the artist's own art.

Just as pure abstract art is not dogmatic, neither is it decorative.

It has become progressively clearer that the plastic expression of true reality is attained through dynamic movement in equilibrium. Plastic art affirms that equilibrium can only be established through the balance of unequal but equivalent oppositions.

Art is not made for anybody and is, at the same time, for everybody.

The most advanced minds as well as the least advanced are obliged to use the same words. If we adopt new words, it will be even more difficult - if not impossible - to make ourselves understood. The new man must therefore express himself in conventional language.

The position of the artist if humble. He is essentially a channel.

Subjectivity ceases to exist only when the mutation-like leap is made from subjectivity to objectivity, from individual existence to universal existence.

I don't want pictures, I want to find things out.

By turning from the surface, one comes closer to the inner laws of matter, which are also the laws of the Spirit.

I think you too recognize the important relationship between philosophy and art, and it is just this relationship that most painters deny. The great masters do grasp it, unconsciously; but I believe that a painter's conscious spiritual knowledge will have a much greater influence upon his art, and that it would be due only to a weakness in him, or lack of genius, should this spiritual knowledge be harmful to his art ...

As tradition, the female element clings to the old art and opposes anything new - precisely because each new art moves further away from the natural appearance of things.

Observing sea, sky and stars, I sought to indicate their plastic function through a multiplicity of crossing verticals and horizontals. Impressed by the vastness of Nature, I was trying to express its expansion, rest and unity.

To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual.

The meaning of words has become so blurred by past usage that 'abstract' is identified with 'vague' and 'unreal,' and 'inwardness' with a sort of traditional beatitude ... The conception of the word 'plastic' has also been limited by individual interpretations.

The more basic the color, the more inward, the more pure.

Reality manifests itself as constant and objective - independent of us, but as changeable in space and time. Consequently, its reflection in us contains both properties. Mixed up in our mind, these properties are confused and we do not have a proper image of reality.

Colored planes, by their position and size as well as by their value, express only relationships, not forms.

I began as a naturalistic painter. Very quickly I felt the urgent need for a more concise form of expression and an economy of means. I never stopped progressing toward abstraction.

The unconscious in us warns us that in art we have to followoneparticular path. And if wefollow it, it isnotthe sign of anunconscious act.On the contrary, it showsthat there is in our ordinary consciousness a greater awareness of our unconsciousness.

I, too, find the flower beautiful in its outward appearance. But a deeper beauty lies concealed within.

The rhythm of relations of color and size makes the absolute appear in the relativity of time and space.

Intuition enlightens and so links up with pure thought. They together become an intelligence which is not simply of the brain, which does not calculate, but feels and thinks.

The positive and negative states of being bring about action. They cause the loss of balance and of happiness. They cause the eternal revolutions - the changes that follow one upon the other. They explain why happiness cannot be achieved in time.

Evolution is always the work of pioneers, and their followers are always small in number. This following is not a clique; it is the result of all the existing social forces; it is composed of all those who through innate or acquired capacity are ready to represent the existing degree of human revolution.

All painting - the painting of the past as well as of the present - shows us that its essential plastic means were only line and color.

Many appreciate in my former work just what I did not want to express, but which was produced by an incapacity to express what I wanted to express - dynamic movement in equilibrium. But a continuous struggle for this statement brought me nearer. This is what I am attempting in 'Victory Boogie Woogie.'

Whoever says he is starting from a given in nature may be right, and so is he who says he is starting from nothing!

It is a task of art to express clear vision of reality.

The clarification of equilibrium through plastic art is of great importance for humanity. It reveals that although human life in time is doomed to disequilibrium, notwithstanding this, it is based on equilibrium. It demonstrates that equilibrium can become more and more living in us.

One can rightly speak of an evolution in plastic art. It is of the greatest importance to note this fact, for it reveals the true way of art - the only path along which we can advance.