Photo source: Wikimedia Commons
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was a Dutch artist best known for his contributions to De Stijl art movement. Sculptor Alexander Calder said,
"My entrance into the field of abstract art came about as the result of a visit to the studio of Piet Mondrian in Paris in 1930. I was particularly impressed by some rectangles of color he had tacked on his wall in a pattern after his nature." (Quoted in The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, 1951)The rest of this post is some quotes for Mondrian.
Form
"The principle of this art is not a negation of matter, but a great love of matter, whereby it is seen in the highest, most intense manner possible, and depicted in the artistic creation." (Written note in Mondrian's sketchbook, 1912)
"The rhythm of relations of color and size makes the absolute appear in the relativity of time and space." (Natural Reality, 1919)
"I am searching for the proper harmony of rhythm and unchanging proportion, as I wrote in the article." (Letter to Theo van Doesburg, 1919)
"...the elements of form have a particular aspect; every fragment, every plane, every line has its proper character." (A New Realism, 1943)
"More and more I excluded from my painting all curved lines, until finally my compositions consisted only of vertical and horizontal lines which formed crosses, each separate and detached from the other." (Plastic art and pure plastic art, 1937)
Universal beauty
"For when I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, it is with the aim of portraying 'universally beauty' as consciously as possible." (Letter to H. P. Bremmer, 1914)
"The truly modern artist is aware of abstraction in an emotion of beauty; he is conscious of the fact that the emotion of beauty is cosmic, universal. This conscious recognition has for its corollary an abstract plasticism, for man adheres only to what is universal." (Natural Reality, 1919)
"These universal means of expression were discovered in modern painting by a logical and gradual progress toward ever more abstract form and color." (Natural Reality, 1919)
