Piet Mondrian Quotes

Piet Mondrian Quotes And Sayings

The work of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian is instantly recognizable for its use of bold primary colors and geometric forms in abstract compositions. Design, fashion, and even architecture have all been affected by his work.

In addition to his paintings and sculptures, Mondrian also left behind a trove of quotations that speak to his aesthetic and philosophical beliefs.

This article will examine the meaning and depth of several of Piet Mondrian's most renowned quotations. Mondrian's remarks will have a profound effect on everybody who reads them, whether they are artists, designers, or people just looking for creative inspiration.

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Piet Mondrian Famous Quotes About Art

“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

“Art is not made for anybody and is, at the same time, for everybody.” ― Piet Mondrian

“Abstract art is not the creation of another reality but the true vision of reality.” ― Piet Mondrian

“It is a task of art to express a clear vision of reality.” ― Piet Mondrian

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

“If you follow nature you will not be able to vanquish the tragic in any real degree in your art... We must free ourselves from our attachment to the external, for only then do we transcend the tragic, and are enabled consciously to contemplate the repose which is within all things.” ― Piet Mondrian

“To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual.” ― 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 follow one particular path. And if we follow it, it's not the sign of an unconscious act. On the contrary, it shows that there is in our ordinary consciousness a greater awareness of our unconsciousness.” ― 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

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Piet Mondrian Famous Quotes

“The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” ― Piet Mondrian

“I wish to approach truth as closely as is possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects.” ― Piet Mondrian

“The more basic the color, the more inward, the more pure.” ― Piet Mondrian

“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.” ― Piet Mondrian

“The emotion of beauty is always obscured by the appearance of the object. Therefore, the object must be eliminated from the picture.” ― Piet Mondrian

“Every true artist has been inspired more by the beauty of lines and color and the relationships between them than by the concrete subject of the picture.” ― Piet Mondrian

“The surface of things gives enjoyment, their interiority gives life.” ― Piet Mondrian

“It is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true.” ― Piet Mondrian

“Curves are so emotional.” ― Piet Mondrian

“Everything is expressed through RELATIONSHIPS.” ― Piet Mondrian

“I, too, find the flower beautiful in its outward appearance. But a deeper beauty lies concealed within.” ― Piet Mondrian

“The truly modern artist is aware of abstraction in an emotion of beauty.” ― Piet Mondrian

“By the unification of architecture, sculpture, and painting a new plastic reality will be created.” ― Piet Mondrian

“Reality manifests itself as constant and objective - independent of us, but as changeable in space and time. Consequently, its reflection in us contains both properties. Mixed up in our mind, these properties are confused and we do not have a proper image of reality.” ― Piet Mondrian

“Recognizing and uniting with the universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty. The more determinately (consciously) this recognition is experienced, the more intense our happiness. The more determinately (consciously) this union with the universal is felt, the more individual subjectivity declines.” ― Piet Mondrian

“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

“Nature or, that which I see, inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation, still just an external foundation, of things.” ― Piet Mondrian

“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.” ― Piet Mondrian

“All painting - the painting of the past as well as of the present - shows us that its essential plastic means were only line and color.” ― 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

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“..the highly abstract cubism of Mondrian - a Dutchman - (it is well-known that cubism has made its entrance into the [Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam...) though a product of cubism, Mondrian in no way imitates this style. He seems above all to have undergone the influence of Picasso, but his personality has been remained intact.

His trees and his female portrait display a sensitive cerebral quality. This kind of cubism clearly follows a different path from that of Braque and Picasso, artists whose 'recherche de matière' [research of the material as matter, what Mondrian deliberately ignores]] is presently arousing such interest.” ― Guillaume Appolinaire, in his chronicle of the exhibition of the 'Salon des Indépendants'

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