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Piet Mondrian Quotes
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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
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In art the search for a content which is collectively understandable is false; the content will always be individual.
Piet Mondrian
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Art is not made for anybody and is, at the same time, for everybody.
Piet Mondrian
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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
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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
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The important task of all art is to destroy the static equilibrium by establishing a dynamic one. Non-figurative art demands an attempt of what is a consequence of this task, the destruction of particular form and the construction of a rhythm of mutual relations, of mutual forms, or free lines.... the law of the denaturalization of matter is of fundamental importance. In painting, the primary color that is as pure as possible realizes this abstraction of natural color
Piet Mondrian
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The new plastic idea cannot, therefore, take the form of concrete representation, although the latter does always indicate the universal to a degree, or at least conceal it within. 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
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Forgive me of saying so, but good things just have to grow very slowly. I say this in connection with your plans.... for launching a journal. I do not think that the time is favourable for it. More must be achieved in art in that direction. I hardly know anyone who is really creating art in our style, in other words, art which has arrived....(i. e. you will have to include in it [in the planned art-Journal 'De Stijl'] what is not consistent with our ideas.)
Piet Mondrian
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A particular thought is not the same as a concentrated, creative thought, which is actually a feeling of inward-looking calm. The former produces a descriptive and morpho-plastic art, the latter a purely plastic manifestation. It is a question of the universal versus the individual.
Piet Mondrian
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This year I have worked hard, and done much searching. A great deal of the old [way of painting] was due for a change. I was searching for a purer representation, which is why I wasn't satisfied with anything... The large black and white one ['Composition in line', 1917] has also been totally reworked, which I now regret; it would have been better to leave it as it was, and make a new one. But when one is searching, one does not now in advance just how to go about it.
Piet Mondrian
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The new plastic idea thus correctly represents actual aesthetic relationships. To the modern artist, it is a natural consequence of all the plastic ideas of the past. This is particularly true for painting, which is the art least bounded to contingencies. The picture can be a pure reflection of life, in its deepest essence.
Piet Mondrian
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The artist make things move, and is moved. He is policeman, motor car, everything at once. He who makes things move also creates rest. That which aesthetically is brought to rest is art.
Piet Mondrian
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For when I construct lines and colour combinations on a flat surface, it is with the aim of portraying 'universally beauty' as consciously as possible. Nature (or that which I see) inspires me, provides me – as it does every painter – with the emotion by which I am moved to create something, but I want to approach the truth as closely as possible, abstracting everything until I come to the foundation – still only an outward foundation! – of things. It is for me a clear truth that one does not want to say something 'specific', it is then that one says what is most specific: the truth (which is of great universality).
Piet Mondrian
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It is of small importance whether De Stijl still exists as a 'group'; a new style was born, a new aesthetic created; it needs only to be understood – and cultivated.
Piet Mondrian
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They [Mondrian's friends in Paris, Tonia and Wim Stieltjes] are receptive to the new, although they do not know what it is. Thus I do occasionally feel that my effort has not been in vain. They find the idea of the N. B. [in Dutch: Nieuwe Beelding / Neo Plasticism] sound and quite magnificent, but think that it will be quite a long time before people are ready for it.
Piet Mondrian
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A form must be of its own time if it is to be recognized: one cannot relate to what one is not or does not have – Thus all that is of the past is to be rejected.
Piet Mondrian
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And now about architects in general – I have to say it, Does [Theo van Doesburg], when 'De Stijl' was founded I left it up to you, but I never did agree with you when you ranked the architects alongside us, alongside our 'N. B.' (Nieuwe Beelding / Neo-Plasticism) I knew then that it would lead to conflict... I cannot write about architecture, because I'm not an architect. I mean, I cannot write about the way I write about painting. Later on, though, I will put forward a few ideas.
Piet Mondrian
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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.
Piet Mondrian
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Dear Does [Theo van Doesburg], thank you for your letter... I was glad to know that in principle you are in favor of the diamond hanging [Mondrian's painting, hanging in a rhombus] and I think that in practice you will approve of this method for some of my things. You look at the thing [painting] itself, and not only the outward appearance..
Piet Mondrian
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As you can see this is a composition of vertical and horizontal lines which will (in an abstract manner) have to express the idea of rising upwards, of magnitude. This is the same idea which used, for example, to be the guiding principle in the construction of cathedrals. Since only the manner of expression and not the representation has to express this general idea, I have not given any title. An abstract human mind will, of itself, receive the intended impression. I always confine myself to expressing the general.
Piet Mondrian
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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
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I believe that at times such as these my modest efforts may be useful to mankind. I have shown how the new art has succeeded in bringing about pure relationships, and furthermore how these can be created in day-today life.
Piet Mondrian
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By the unification of architecture, sculpture and painting a new plastic reality will be created.
Piet Mondrian
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I am searching for the proper harmony of rhythm and unchanging proportion, as I wrote in the article. And I cannot tell you how difficult it is.
Piet Mondrian
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It is clear to me that this [his recent works and ideas on art] is art for the future. Futurism, although it has advanced beyond naturalism, occupies itself too much with human sensations. Cubism – which in its content is still too much concerned with earlier aesthetic products, and thus less rooted in its own time than Futurism – Cubism has taken a giant step in the direction of abstraction, and is in this respect of its own time and of the future. Thus in its content it is not modern, but in its effect it is.
Piet Mondrian
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Quote of the day
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Piet Mondrian
Creative Commons
Born:
March 7, 1872
Died:
February 1, 1944
(aged 71)
Bio:
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian, was a Dutch painter.
Known for:
Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1943)
Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow (1930)
Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1942)
Gray Tree (1911)
Victory Boogie-Woogie (1944)
Most used words:
art
lines
form
spiritual
plastic
painting
neo
idea
time
work
plasticism
universal
nature
life
expression
Piet Mondrian on Wikipedia
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