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Quote by Piet Mondrian

“I don't want pictures, I want to find things out.”

Quote by Piet Mondrian

Author

Piet Mondrian (March 7, 1872 – February 1, 1944) was a Dutch painter and a key figure in the De Stijl movement, renowned for his geometric abstract art. Initially influenced by Impressionism and Cubism, he developed Neoplasticism, a style using straight lines, right angles, and primary colors (red, yellow, blue) plus non-colors (black, white, gray). His iconic works like Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue sought universal harmony through simplification. Mondrian's ideas profoundly impacted modern art, design, and architecture. He spent his final years in New York, creating vibrant pieces like Broadway Boogie Woogie, reflecting jazz rhythms. His legacy endures as a pioneer of abstraction, influencing fields from fashion to digital art. more

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

Reality Painting Architecture Plastic Sculpture Unification

Book:Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937, and other essays, 1941-1943

Source: Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937, and other essays, 1941-1943

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

Giving Surface Enjoyment

Author:Piet Mondrian

“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.”

Should Ideas Form Natural Lines Expression Appearance Contrary Defined Primaries Colour Plastic Abstraction Straight Lines Natural Forms

Author:Piet Mondrian

“Cubism did not accept the logical consequences of its own discoveries; it was not developing abstraction towards its own goal, the expression of pure reality.”

Reality Goal Accepting Expression Pure Discovery Consequence Developing Logical Abstraction Cubism

Book:Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937, and other essays, 1941-1943

Source: Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937, and other essays, 1941-1943

“The essence of painting has actually always been to make it [the universal] plastically perceptible through colour and line.”

Lines Painting Essence Universal Colour

Author: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.”

Two Action Force Lines Particular Expression Aspect Opposites Opposing Equilibrium Reciprocal Vertical Horizontal Horizontal Lines

Book:Piet Mondrian, 1872-1944: exhibition Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Washington Gallery of Modern Art

Source: Piet Mondrian, 1872-1944: exhibition Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Washington Gallery of Modern Art

“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.”

Trying Stars Sea Sky Function Unity Plastic Impressed Expansion Observing Crossings Multiplicity Vastness

Book:Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937, and other essays, 1941-1943

Source: Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937, and other essays, 1941-1943

“The colored planes, as much by position and dimension as by the greater value given to color, plastically express only relationships and not forms.”

Form Values Given Greater Position Color Planes Dimensions

Book:The new art--the new life: the collected writings of Piet Mondrian

Source: The new art--the new life: the collected writings of 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.”

Has Beens Artist Lines Subjects Color Inspired Concrete Very True True Artists

Author:Piet Mondrian

“It is the poet and philosopher who provide the community of objectives in which the artist participates. Their chief preoccupation, like the artist, is the expression in concrete form of their notions of reality. Like him, they deal with the verities of time and space, life and death, and the heights of exaltation as well as the depths of despair. The preoccupation with these eternal problems creates a common ground which transcends the disparity in the means used to achieve them.”

Source: The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art