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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Piet Mondrian

Happiness

Time

Positive

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

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

Piet Mondrian

Degree

Artist

" Through the very culture of representation through form, we have come to see that the abstract - like the mathematical - is actually expressed in and through all things, although not determinately. "

Piet Mondrian

Abstract

Culture

" 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. "

" I think that the destructive element is too much neglected in art. "

" It is not important to make many pictures but that I have one picture right. "

" The desire for freedom and equilibrium (harmony) is inherent in man (due to the universal in him). "

" 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. "

Piet Mondrian

Look

Misery

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

" We need words to name and designate things. But we have only a static language with which to express ourselves. "

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

Piet Mondrian

Channel

Humble

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" True Boogie-Woogie I conceive as homogeneous in intention with mine in painting: destruction of melody, which is the equivalent of destruction of natural appearance, and construction through the continuous opposition of pure means - dynamic rhythm. "

" 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.' "

" 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.' "

Piet Mondrian

Struggle

I Am

" 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 spiritual (i.e. the supersensory) has many degrees; thus, the term 'spiritual' is used both for the scale of degrees away from the physical towards the spirit, but also only for the spiritual proper. "

" 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. "

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

Piet Mondrian

Only

Confusion

" 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. "

" 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. "

" To move the picture into our surroundings and give it real existence has been my ideal since I came to abstract painting. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Piet Mondrian

Need

Economy

" 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. "