60 quotes
It is interesting to observe how real the object remains, in spite of all abstractions.
Statement of mid-1920's; as quoted in Abstract Art (1990)
The eye travels along the paths cut out for it in the work.
Pedagogical Sketch Book (1925)
He [in general] has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise, i.e., cannot do something else.
The law that supports space - this should be the title appropriate to one of my future pictures!
When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.
To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.
Now Delaunay wrote and sent me an article by himself about himself.
Diary entry (1912)
The work as human action (genesis) is productive as well as receptive. It is continuity.
Pedagogical Sketch Book (1925)
Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.
Creative Credo (1920)
For the artist communication with nature remains the most essential condition. The artist is human; himself nature; part of nature within natural space.
Reality and dream simultaneously, and myself makes a third in the party, completely at home here. This will be fine.
Diary-notes from Tunisia (1914)
The longer a line, the more of the time element it contains. Distance is time whereas a surface is apprehended more in terms of the moment.
Exact Experiments in the Realm of Art (1927)
The pictorial work was born of movement, is itself recorded movement, and is assimilated through movement (eye muscles).
Creative Credo (1920)
..I served Beauty by drawing her enemies.
A tendency toward the abstract is inherent in linear expression: graphic imagery being confined to outlines has a fairy-like quality and at the same time can achieve great precision.
Creative Credo (1920)
His [ Vincent van Gogh's] line is new and yet very old, and happily not a purely European affair. It is more a question of reform than of revolution.
Nature can afford to be prodigal in everything, the artist must be frugal down to the last detail.
Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.
The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now.
Diary entry (1915)
Kandinsky wants to organize a new society of artists. I came to feel a deep trust in him [ Kandinsky ]. He is somebody, and has an exceptionally beautiful and lucid mind.
Polyphonic painting is superior to music in that, here, the time element becomes a spatial element. The notion of simultaneity stands out even more richly.