Piet Mondrian Quotes
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Reality only appears to us tragical because of the disequilibrium and confusion of its appearances.
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That is what we are against the ancient-Greek ideas about art, because that is the key to the classic and tragic finality from which we must free ourselves.
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True Boogie-Woogie I conceive as homogeneous in intention with mine in painting: destruction of melody, which is the equivalent of destruction of natural appearance, and construction through the continuous opposition of pure means - dynamic rhythm.
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Art is the path to being spiritual.
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I began as a naturalistic painter. Very quickly I felt the urgent need for a more concise form of expression and an economy of means. I never stopped progressing toward abstraction.
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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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Environment, education, experience, make men conscious of passing reality but overwhelm their intuitive capacity when this is not very strong.
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The truly modern artist is aware of abstraction in an emotion of beauty; he is conscious of the fact that the emotion of beauty is cosmic, universal. This conscious recognition has for its corollary an abstract plasticism, for man adheres only to what is universal.
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By turning from the surface, one comes closer to the inner laws of matter, which are also the laws of the Spirit.
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It has become progressively clearer that the plastic expression of true reality is attained through dynamic movement in equilibrium. Plastic art affirms that equilibrium can only be established through the balance of unequal but equivalent oppositions.
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As tradition, the female element clings to the old art and opposes anything new - precisely because each new art moves further away from the natural appearance of things.
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One can rightly speak of an evolution in plastic art. It is of the greatest importance to note this fact, for it reveals the true way of art - the only path along which we can advance.
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The meaning of words has become so blurred by past usage that 'abstract' is identified with 'vague' and 'unreal,' and 'inwardness' with a sort of traditional beatitude... The conception of the word 'plastic' has also been limited by individual interpretations.
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'Masculine and feminime, vertical and horizontal.
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However, new plasticism is pure painting in contrast with the opinion of Theo van Doesburg, then: the means of expression still are form and color, though these are completely interiorized; the straight line and flat color remain purely pictorial means of expression.
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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.
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The artist sees the tragic to such a degree that he is compelled to express the non-tragic.
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The positive and negative states of being bring about action. They cause the loss of balance and of happiness. They cause the eternal revolutions - the changes that follow one upon the other. They explain why happiness cannot be achieved in time.
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Through the very culture of representation through form, we have come to see that the abstract - like the mathematical - is actually expressed in and through all things, although not determinately.
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The cultivated man of today is gradually turning away from natural things, and his life is becoming more and more abstract. Natural (external) things become more and more automatic, and we observe that our vital attention fastens more and more on internal things.
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If the paying public demands naturalistic art, then an artist can use his skills to produce such pictures - but these are to be clearly distinguished from the artist's own art.
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Dance, theatre, etc. as art, will disappear along with the dominating 'expression' of tragedy and harmony: the movement of life itself will become harmonious.
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..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.
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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.