Top 15 Piet Mondrian Quotes

..the elements of form have a particular aspect; every fragment, every plane, every line has its proper character.

..reality reveals itself by substantial, palpable forms, accumulated or dispersed in empty space.. ..these forms are part of that space and.. ..the space between them appears as form, a fact which evidences the unity of form and space.

Culture produces relative consciousness of the changeable expression of reality. When this consciousness is attained, a revolt takes place: the beginning of the deliverance from that expression of reality. Destruction of its limitation follows. The culture of the intuitive faculties has conquered. A clearer perception of constant reality is possible. A new realism appears.

Environment, education, experience, make men conscious of passing reality but overwhelm their intuitive capacity when this is not very strong.

Human culture reveals an opposition: diminution of the instinctive faculties and development of the intuitive capacity. A cultivation of instinctive faculties produces human degeneration; a cultivation of intuitive capacities creates human progress.

Instinct reveals itself as self-concentrating, self-edifying it is limitation. Intuition produces self-denial, self-destruction； it is expansion. Culture can develop both. If it develops instinct, animal nature appears. Then culture destroys the intuitive capacity which men have even found in a primitive state.

Only through intuition does a work rise above more or less subjective expression. Different periods produce different feelings and conceptions, and in each period men differ. Consequently different art expressions even in a single period are not only logical but a tribute to the general development of art. Intuition always finds the way of progress, which is continuous growth toward a clearer establishment of the content of art: the unification of man with the universe.

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.

Only now I become conscious that my work in black, white and little color planes has been merely 'drawing' in oil color. In drawing, the lines are the principal means of expressions.. .In painting, however, the lines are absorbed by the color planes; but the limitations of the planes show themselves as lines and conserve their great value.

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.

In his later works Doesburg tried to destroy static expression by diagonal position of his lines. But in this way the feeling of physic equilibrium which is necessary to enjoy a work of art is lost.

[..but he had] a record with the music of the dwarfes on it, and quite often play it.

[...that the] dwarfes don't have enough time to help me themselves but send squirrels and birds. [referring to artist-friends who had helped him to settle in London.

[..how the] landlord has had my room cleaned by Snow White and the squirrel has whitewashed the walls with his tail [signed:] - "Sleepy".

Quote of Mondrian about the years 1914-18; in 'Mondrian, Essays' ('Plastic art and pure plastic art', 1937 and his other essays, (1941-1943) by Piet Mondrian; Wittenborn-Schultz Inc., New York, 1945, p. 10; as cited in De Stijl 1917-1931 - The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art, by H.L.C. Jaffé; J.M. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam 1956, p. 43