Piet Mondrian on Life
Browse 8 quotations attributed to Piet Mondrian, catalogued under life, with dates where available.
This page displays 8 quotations attributed to Piet Mondrian and filed under "life" in QuoteLineage. The selection is ordered by stored importance and quality scores, not citation counts. A topic label describes how an entry is catalogued; it does not establish the theme's importance in the author's work.
Attributed to Piet Mondrian, entry #34652: "It is of small importance whether De Stijl still exists as a 'group'; a new style was born, a new aesthetic created; it needs only to be understood – and cultivated."
Attributed to Piet Mondrian, entry #15989: "The surface of things gives enjoyment, their interiority gives life."
8 Quotes by Piet Mondrian on Life
"It is of small importance whether De Stijl still exists as a 'group'; a new style was born, a new aesthetic created; it needs only to be understood – and cultivated."
"The surface of things gives enjoyment, their interiority gives life."
"..the Place de l'Opera 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."
"The cultivated man of today is gradually turning away from natural things, and his life is becoming more and more abstract. Natural things become more and more automatic, and we observe that our vital attention fastens more and more on internal things."
"Thus we must carefully distinguish between two kinds of reality, one which has an individual character, and one which has a universal appearance.. .It is, however, wrong to think that the non-figurative artist finds impressions and emotions received from the outside useless, and regards it even as necessary to fight against them.. .It is equally wrong to think that the non-figurative artist creates through 'the pure intention of his mechanical process', that he makes 'calculated abstractions' and that he wish to 'suppress sentiment not only in himself but in the spectator'.. .It is thus clear that he has not become a mechanic, but that the progress of science, of technique, of machinery, of life as a whole, has only made him into a living machine, capable of realizing in a pure manner the essence of art."
"later Quote of Mondrian, about his 1890's; taken from 'Mondrian, Essays' 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. 39"
"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."
"You must have heard that last autumn I almost got married, but I am glad I realized in time that it had been an illusion, all those beautiful things. Although I have always lived for art, I am also attracted to the beautiful in life and so I sometimes do things that seem strange for me."