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Piet Mondrian Quotes
1872–1944 Netherlands
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan (after 1912: Piet Mondrian). (March 7, 1872 – February 1, 1944) was a Dutch painter starting in Dutch impressionism but soon started to develop abstraction from his landscape paintings. He became an inspiring leader of the De Stijl art movement and group, together with Theo van Doesburg.
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41 quotes
..the Place de l'Opera [in Paris] gives a better image of the new life than many theories. Its rhythms of opposition, twice repeated in its two directions, realizes a living equilibrium through the exactness of its execution.
The principle of this art [as Mondrian proposes his view on modern art] is not a negation of matter, but a great love of matter, whereby it is seen in the highest, most intense manner possible, and depicted in the artistic creation.
The rhythm of relations of color and size makes the absolute appear in the relativity of time and space.
[I am searching] pure expression of that incomprehensible power, which works universally.
The balanced relation is the purest representation of universality, of the harmony and unity which are inherent characteristics of the mind.
Composition allows the artist the greatest possible freedom, so that his subjectivity can express itself, to a certain degree, for as long as needed.
Kandinsky points out [in his book On the Spiritual in Art] that Theosophy (in its true sense; not as it generally appears) is yet another expression of the same spiritual movement which we are now seeing in painting.
..reality reveals itself by substantial, palpable forms, accumulated or dispersed in empty space.. ..these forms are part of that space and.. ..the space between them appears as form, a fact which evidences the unity of form and space.
Vertical and horizontal lines are the expression of two opposing forces; they exist everywhere and dominate everything; their reciprocal action constitutes 'life'. I recognized that the equilibrium of any particular aspect of nature rests on the equivalence of its opposites.
It may be noted that in Neo-Plastic art the crucial thing is the right angel, that is, the right-angle lines. And not whether the position of the lines is vertical or horizontal.. .So it is possible to make very beautiful things while placing the lines in a diagonal position.
Modern man - although a unity of body, mind, and soul - exhibits a changed consciousness: every expression of his life has today a different aspect, that is, an aspect more positively abstract.
I often sketched by moonlight {in the 1890's] - cows resting or standing immovable in flat Dutch meadows, or houses with dead, blank windows. I never painted these things romantically, but from the very beginning I was always a realist.
In Paris, I quickly mastered the Foxtrot, the Shimmy and the One Step, [he liked the Shimmy best:] At first, the heel-toe was sort of tricky. Nowadays, they find ways around it.
[..but he had] a record with the music of the dwarfes on it, and quite often play it.
The new plastic idea cannot, therefore, take the form of a natural or concrete representation, although the latter does always indicate the universal to a degree, or at least conceals it within.
Observing sea, sky and stars, I sought to indicate their plastic function through a multiplicity of crossing verticals and horizontals. Impressed by the vastness of Nature, I was trying to express its expansion, rest and unity.
Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of an abstract art. Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man.
If the masc. [masculine] is the vertic. [vertical] line, then a man will recognize this element in the rising line of a forest; in the horizont. [horizontal] lines of the sea he will see his complement. Woman, with the horizont. line as element, sees herself in the recumbent lines of the sea, and her complement in the vert. lines of the forest.
The first thing to change in my painting was the color [c. 1908-09]. I forsook natural color for pure color. I had come to feel that the colors of nature cannot be reproduced on canvas. Instinctively I felt that painting had to find a new way to express the beauty of nature.
The free placement of the means of expression is a privilege enjoyed exclusively by painting [different opinion with Theo van Doesburg]] ]. The sister arts, sculpture and architecture, are more restricted in this respect. The other arts enjoy even less scope in their employment of the means of expression.
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