Piet Mondrian Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Piet Mondrian

  Art, Mean, Past

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• I hate everything approaching temperamental inspiration,'sacred fire'and all those attributes of genius which serve only as cloaks for untidy minds.

  Piet Mondrian

  Hate, Inspiration, Fire

  Quoted in F Elgar Mondrian (1968).

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• 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.

  Piet Mondrian

  Confused, Independent, Reflection

  Piet Mondrian, Harry Holtzman, Martin S. James (1986). “The new art--the new life: the collected writings of Piet Mondrian”, Twayne Pub

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• This new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour.

  Piet Mondrian

  Ideas, Expression, Lines

  "Letters of the great artists" by Richard Friedenthal, translated by Daphne Woodward, Thames and Hudson, London, (p. 236), 1963.

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• In past times when one lived in contact with nature, abstraction was easy; it was done unconsciously. Now in our denaturalized age abstraction becomes an effort.

  Piet Mondrian

  Past, Effort, Age

  14 Copy quote

• Nature or, that which I see, inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation, still just an external foundation, of things.

  Piet Mondrian

  Nature, Emotional, Inspire

  9 Copy quote

• Cubism did not accept the logical consequences of its own discoveries; it was not developing abstraction towards its own goal, the expression of pure reality.

  Piet Mondrian

  Reality, Discovery, Expression

  Piet Mondrian (2008). “Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937, and other essays, 1941-1943”, Alan Wofsy Fine Arts

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• 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.

  Piet Mondrian

  Art, Real, Attachment

  29 Copy quote

• 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 fulfillment of man and signal the end of (what we call) art.

  Piet Mondrian

  Art, Men, Practice

  "Abstract Painting" by Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co., (p. 85), 1964.

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• The purer the artist's 'mirror' is, the more true reality reflects in it. Overseeing the historical culture of art, we must conclude that the mirror only slowly is purified. Time producing this purifying shows a gradual, more constant and objective image of reality.

  Piet Mondrian

  Art, Reality, Mirrors

  Piet Mondrian, Harry Holtzman, Martin S. James (1986). “The new art--the new life: the collected writings of Piet Mondrian”, Twayne Pub

  21 Copy quote

• In art the search for a content which is collectively understandable is false; the content will always be individual.

  Piet Mondrian

  Art, Individual

  Piet Mondrian (2008). “Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937, and other essays, 1941-1943”, Alan Wofsy Fine Arts

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• Recognizing and uniting with the universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty. The more determinately (consciously) this recognition is experienced, the more intense our happiness. The more determinately (consciously) this union with the universal is felt, the more individual subjectivity declines.

  Piet Mondrian

  Life, Art, Giving

  "The new art - the new life: the collected writings of Piet Mondrian".

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• 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.

  Piet Mondrian

  Art, Ordinary, Path

  Quoted in F Elgar Mondrian (1968).

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• 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.

  Piet Mondrian

  Sky, Doe, Use

  Carel Blotkamp, Piet Mondrian (1994). “Mondrian: the art of destruction”, Harry N Abrams Inc

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

  Piet Mondrian

  Color, Size, Planes

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

  Piet Mondrian

  Color, Dimensions, Form

  Piet Mondrian, Harry Holtzman, Martin S. James (1986). “The new art--the new life: the collected writings of Piet Mondrian”, Twayne Pub

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• 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.

  Piet Mondrian

  Numbers, Degrees, Pioneers

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