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We speak of concrete and not abstract painting because nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a colour, a surface. [quote of Van Doesburg, c. 1925]
— Theo van Doesburg
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Notes from Wikiquote Hans Arp used some years earlier already this new term: 'concrete art' as a rejection of the term 'abstract art'
More quotes by Theo van Doesburg
European art [however] has developed from mimetic-ism and only today is arriving at an elementary plastic art.
..modern destruction begins where architectural structure is opened up and set into motion by colour relationships. The colour-planes, however, are always in orthogonal relationship.
Only a radical cleaning of social and artistic life as, in the domain of art, is already done by Dada, which is anti-sentimental and healthy to the core, since it is anti-art. Only unscrupulously striking down any systematically bred amateurism in any field, can prepare civilization for the 'New Vision's happiness which is greatly and purely alive in a dew people.
After having passed through the various phases of plastic creation [the phases of arrangement, composition, and construction] I have arrived at the creation of 'universal forms' through constructing upon an arithmetical basis with the pure elements of painting.
Our time has produced a need for contrast. This has been achieved not only in the external appearance of plastic expressions of colour and matter, but also, and chiefly, in the tempo of life and in the techniques related to the daily, mechanical functions of life; namely standing, walking, driving, to lying and sitting – in short, every action which determines the content of architecture.
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