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" 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

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

" 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. "

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

" If the universal is the essential, then it is the basis of all life and art. Recognizing and uniting with the universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I want to abolish time, especially in the contemplation of architecture. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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

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

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

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

Piet Mondrian

Degree

Artist

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

Piet Mondrian

Only

Confusion

" 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. "

" I came to the destruction of volume by the use of the plane. This I accomplished by means of lines cutting the planes. But still, the plane remained too intact. So I came to making only lines and brought the colour within the lines. Now the only problem was to destroy these lines also through mutual oppositions. "

" 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. "

" Art is the path to being spiritual. "

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

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "