Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" Whoever says he is starting from a given in nature may be right, and so is he who says he is starting from nothing! "
Piet Mondrian
Right
Starting
May
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Impossible
Words
Minds
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Too Much
Progress
Feel
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Evolution
Speak
True
" 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.' "
Piet Mondrian
Evolution
Doubt
Well
" It is not important to make many pictures but that I have one picture right. "
Piet Mondrian
Pictures
Important
Picture
" I think that the destructive element is too much neglected in art. "
Piet Mondrian
Think
Too Much
Too
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Great
Time
Life
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Art
New
Tradition
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Through
Problem
Now
" Subjectivity ceases to exist only when the mutation-like leap is made from subjectivity to objectivity, from individual existence to universal existence. "
Piet Mondrian
Exist
Existence
Only
" The artist sees the tragic to such a degree that he is compelled to express the non-tragic. "
Piet Mondrian
Degree
Artist
He
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Why
Colour
Principal
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Beauty
Life
Aesthetic
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Words
Become
Blurred
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Art
Hand
Universal
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Brain
Thought
Intelligence
" Art is the path to being spiritual. "
Piet Mondrian
Spiritual
Path
Being
" Just as pure abstract art is not dogmatic, neither is it decorative. "
Piet Mondrian
Art
Abstract Art
Pure
" 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
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Used
Spirit
Spiritual
" To move the picture into our surroundings and give it real existence has been my ideal since I came to abstract painting. "
Piet Mondrian
Picture
Real
Painting
" Only conscious man can mirror the universal: he can consciously become one with the universal and so can consciously transcend the individual. "
Piet Mondrian
Man
Become
Mirror
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Art
True
Teacher
" The desire for freedom and equilibrium (harmony) is inherent in man (due to the universal in him). "
Piet Mondrian
Man
Desire
Due
" We need words to name and designate things. But we have only a static language with which to express ourselves. "
Piet Mondrian
Language
Words
Need
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Construction
Appearance
True
" By turning from the surface, one comes closer to the inner laws of matter, which are also the laws of the Spirit. "
Piet Mondrian
Laws
Inner
Matter
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
Deep
I Am
Know
" The position of the artist if humble. He is essentially a channel. "
Piet Mondrian
Channel
He
Humble
" 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. "
Piet Mondrian
I Am
Working
Sky