Things are beautiful or ugly only in time and space. The new man’s vision being liberated from these two factors, all is unified in one unique beauty. – Piet Mondrian
Everything is expressed through relationship. Colour can exist only through other colours, dimension through other dimensions, position through other positions that oppose them. That is why I regard relationship as the principal thing. – Piet Mondrian
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. – Piet Mondrian
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. – Piet Mondrian
We must look not to the negative (the misery, the bestial in life), although we undergo it and sympathize with it, but rather to the burgeoning life around us, which is strengthened by the negative. – Piet Mondrian
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. – Piet Mondrian
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. – Piet Mondrian
I do not know how I shall develop, but for the present, I am continuing to work within ordinary, generally known terrain, different only because of a deep substratum, which leads those who are receptive to sense the finer regions. – Piet Mondrian
The natural does not have to be a specific representation. I am now working on a thing which is a reconstruction of a starry sky, yet I make it, nevertheless, without a given in nature. – Piet Mondrian
The most advanced minds as well as the least advanced are obliged to use the same words. If we adopt new words, it will be even more difficult – if not impossible – to make ourselves understood. The new man must therefore express himself in conventional language. – Piet Mondrian
Non-figurative art is created by establishing a dynamic rhythm of determinate mutual relations which excludes the formation of any particular form. – Piet Mondrian
The desire for freedom and equilibrium (harmony) is inherent in man (due to the universal in him). – Piet Mondrian
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. – Piet Mondrian
The artist sees the tragic to such a degree that he is compelled to express the non-tragic. – Piet Mondrian
Dance, theatre, etc. as art, will disappear along with the dominating ‘expression’ of tragedy and harmony: the movement of life itself will become harmonious. – Piet Mondrian
Intuition enlightens and so links up with pure thought. They together become an intelligence which is not simply of the brain, which does not calculate, but feels and thinks. – Piet Mondrian
If the universal is the essential, then it is the basis of all life and art. Recognizing and uniting with the universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty. – Piet Mondrian
The rhythm of relations of color and size makes the absolute appear in the relativity of time and space. – Piet Mondrian
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. – Piet Mondrian
Let us note that art – even on an abstract level – has never been confined to ‘idea’; art has always been the ‘realized’ expression of equilibrium. – Piet Mondrian
Experience was my only teacher; I knew little of the modern art movement. When I first saw the works of the Impressionists, van Gogh, van Dongen, and Fauves, I admired it. But I had to seek the true way alone. – Piet Mondrian
All that is base in the masses is temporary, no doubt serving only to prevent evolution (that of the elite, as well) from proceeding too quickly and thus not becoming ‘reality.’ – Piet Mondrian
