Piet Mondrian

The artist sees the tragic to such a degree that he is compelled to express the non-tragic.

Non-figurative art is created by establishing a dynamic rhythm of determinate mutual relations which excludes the formation of any particular form.

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.

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.

The spiritual (i.e. the supersensory) has many degrees; thus, the term 'spiritual' is used both for the scale of degrees away from the physical towards the spirit, but also only for the spiritual proper.

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.

I want to abolish time, especially in the contemplation of architecture.

By turning from the surface, one comes closer to the inner laws of matter, which are also the laws of the Spirit.

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.

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.

To move the picture into our surroundings and give it real existence has been my ideal since I came to abstract painting.

Many appreciate in my former work just what I did not want to express, but which was produced by an incapacity to express what I wanted to express - dynamic movement in equilibrium. But a continuous struggle for this statement brought me nearer. This is what I am attempting in 'Victory Boogie Woogie.'

Dance, theatre, etc. as art, will disappear along with the dominating 'expression' of tragedy and harmony: the movement of life itself will become harmonious.

The desire for freedom and equilibrium (harmony) is inherent in man (due to the universal in him).

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.

The clarification of equilibrium through plastic art is of great importance for humanity. It reveals that although human life in time is doomed to disequilibrium, notwithstanding this, it is based on equilibrium. It demonstrates that equilibrium can become more and more living in us.

Reality only appears to us tragical because of the disequilibrium and confusion of its appearances.

All individual thought is dissolved in universal thought, as all form is dissolved in the universal plastic means of Abstract-Real painting.

The subjectivization of the universal in art brings the universal downward on one hand, while on the other it helps raise the individual toward the universal.

Subjectivity ceases to exist only when the mutation-like leap is made from subjectivity to objectivity, from individual existence to universal existence.

We need words to name and designate things. But we have only a static language with which to express ourselves.

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.

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.

Whoever says he is starting from a given in nature may be right, and so is he who says he is starting from nothing!

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.