Piet Mondrian - Art Quotes

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If the universal is the essential, then it is the basis of all life and art. Recognizing and uniting with universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty. the more this union with the universal is felt, the more individual subjectivity declines.

Piet Mondrian
In order to approach the spiritual in art, one employs reality as little as possible…This explains logically why primary forms are employed. Since these forms are abstract, an abstract art comes into being.

Piet Mondrian
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 is not made for anybody and is, at the same time, for everybody.

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

Piet Mondrian
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
The only problem in art is to achieve a balance between subjective and objective.

Piet Mondrian
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
For the present at least [1909] I shall restrict my work to the ordinary world of the senses, since that is the world in which we still live. But nevertheless art even now form a transition to the finer regions, which perhaps I am incorrect in calling spiritual, for everything that has form is not yet spiritual, as I read somewhere. But it is nonetheless the path of ascension away from matter. Well dear Querido, with many heartfelt wishes, Piet Mondriaan.

Piet Mondrian
[the double line in his paintings] is still one line, as in the case of your grooves [the wide sunken lines in the relief's, artist Gorin made that time]... In my last things the double line widens to form a plane, and yet it remains a line. Be that as it may, I believe that this question is one of those which lie beyond the realm of theory, and which are of such subtlety that they are rooted in the mystery of 'art'. But all that is not yet clear in my mind.

Piet Mondrian
I think you too recognize the important relationship between philosophy and art, and it is just this relationship that most painters deny. The great masters do grasp it, unconsciously; but I believe that a painter's conscious spiritual knowledge will have a much greater influence upon his art, and that it would be due only to a weakness in him, or lack of genius, should this spiritual knowledge be harmful to his art...

Piet Mondrian
Having red several of your books, I wonder if you [Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy] could find the time to read my brochure 'Le Néo-Plasticisme', which I am closing. I believe that Neo-Plasticism is the art of the foreseeable future for all true anthroposophists and theosophists. Neo-Plasticism creates harmony through the equivalence of the two extremes: the universal and the individual. The former by 'revelation', the latter by 'deduction'... It was impossible to bring about an equilibrium of relationships other than by destroying the 'form', and replacing it by a new 'universal' expressive means.

Piet Mondrian
To show that this end [of art by its dissolution into real life] is only a beginning, it is essential that.... the series of galleries [of the future museum of modern art] be followed by a room in which painting and sculpture will be realized by the interior itself.... demonstrating that what is lost for art is gained for life. This room could therefore be designed for use as a lecture room, a restaurant.... as a bar with an American jazz band.

Piet Mondrian
Now the only problem is to destroy these lines also through mutual opposition...[note under his letter]: I think that the destructive element is too much neglected in art.

Piet Mondrian
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
The free placement of the means of expression is a privilege enjoyed exclusively by painting. 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..

Piet Mondrian
The principle of this art [as Mondrian proposes as 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.

Piet Mondrian
You must have heard that last autumn I almost got married, but I am glad I realized in time that it had been an illusion, all those beautiful things. Although I have always lived for art, I am also attracted to the beautiful in life and so I sometimes do things that seem strange for me.

Piet Mondrian
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.

Piet Mondrian
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
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
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
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
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
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
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