Piet Quotes & Sayings

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

Freedom means you're free to do just whatever pleases you; if, of course that is to say, what you please is what you may. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

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. — Piet Mondrian

ON PROBLEMS
Our choicest plans
have fallen through,
our airiest castles
tumbled over,
because of lines
we neatly drew
and later neatly
stumbled over. — Piet Hein

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

By the unification of architecture, sculpture and painting a new plastic reality will be created. — Piet Mondrian

Art is the path to being spiritual. — Piet Mondrian

To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. — Piet Mondrian

It is a task of art to express clear vision of reality. — Piet Mondrian

The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.
Piet Mondrian
The Artist's Way A Spiritual Path to Greater Creativity by Julia Cameron — Piet Mondrian

A WORD TO THE WISE
Let the world pass in its time-ridden race;
never get caught in its snare.
Remember, the only acceptable case
for being in any particular place
is having no business there. — Piet Hein

In art the search for a content which is collectively understandable is false; the content will always be individual. — Piet Mondrian

The universe may be as great as they say. But it wouldn't be missed if it didn't exist. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

Experts have their expert fun ex cathedra telling one just how nothing can be done. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

Taking fun as simply fun and earnestness in earnest shows how thoroughly thou none of the two discernest. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

WHO IS LEARNED? A definition
One who, consuming midnight oil
in studies diligent and slow,
teaches himself, with painful toil,
the things that other people know. — Piet Hein

MEETING THE EYE
You'll probably find
that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
is to look a bit stupider
than you are. — Piet Hein

We shall have to evolve problem-solvers galore since each problem they solve creates ten problems more. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

MAKING AN EFFORT
Our so-called limitations, I believe,
apply to faculties we don't apply.
We don't discover what we can't achieve
until we make an effort not to try. — Piet Hein

Living is a thing you do now or never which do you? — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

CANDLE WISDOM
If you knew
what you will know
when your candle
has burnt low,
it would greatly
ease your plight
while your candle
still burns bright. — Piet Hein

ABREAST
He who aims
to keep abreast
is for ever
second best. — Piet Hein

Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer. — Piet Hein

Somebody said that Reason was dead. Reason said: No, I think not so. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

I had to find a way to paint abstractly, which is what I wanted to do. I couldn't forget [Wassily] Kandinsky and [Kazimir] Malevich and [Piet] Mondrian, I mean that was the basis. — Frank Stella

The emotion of beauty is always obscured by the appearance of the object. Therefore, the object must be eliminated from the picture. — Piet Mondrian

We ought to live each day as though it were our last day here below. But if I did, alas, I know it would have killed me long ago. — Piet Hein

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

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

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

Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards. — Piet Hein

If you follow nature you will not be able to vanquish the tragic in any real degree in your art ... We must free ourselves from our attachment to the external, for only then do we transcend the tragic, and are enabled consciously to contemplate the repose which is within all things. — Piet Mondrian

Nobody can be lucky all the time, / so when your luck deserts you in some fashion / don't think you've been abandoned in your prime, / but rather that you're saving up your ration — Piet Hein

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

Evolution is always the work of pioneers, and their followers are always small in number. This following is not a clique; it is the result of all the existing social forces; it is composed of all those who through innate or acquired capacity are ready to represent the existing degree of human revolution. — Piet Mondrian

Wherever there is a single solution, that solution must always achieve some kind of maximum. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

Those who always know what's best are a universal pest. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

It is not important to make many pictures but that I have one picture right. — Piet Mondrian

The skeletons of the plants are for me as important as the flowers. — Piet Oudolf

I wish to approach truth as closely as is possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects. — Piet Mondrian

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. — 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 WISDOM OF THE SPHERES
How instructive
is a star!
It can teach us
from afar
just how small
each other are. — Piet Hein

Colour is a creative element, not a trimming. — Piet Zwart

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

We are born in this cemetery, but must not despair.
-Piet Soron, 1847 — Jesse Ball

It isn't enough to exasperate others. You have to remember to gladden yourself! — Piet Hein

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

When you feel how depressingly slowly you climb, it's well to remember that Things Take Time. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

The only problem in art is to achieve a balance between subjective and objective. — Piet Mondrian

A morning later, Nancy described her first dream, the first remembered dream of her life. She and Judy Thorne were on a screened porch, catching ladybugs. Judy caught one with one spot on its back and showed it to Nancy. Nancy caught one with two spots and showed it to Judy. Then Judy caught one with three spots and Nancy one with four. Because (the child explained) the dots showed how old the ladybugs were. She told this dream to her mother, who had her repeat it to her father at breakfast. Piet was moved, beholding his daughter launched intoanother dimension of life. Like school. He was touched by her tiny stock of imagery the screened porch (neither they nor the Thornes had one; who?), the ladybugs (with turtles the most toylike of creatures), the mysterious power of numbers, that generates space and time. Piet saw down a long amplifying corridor of her dreams, and wanted to hear her tell them, to grow older with her, to shelter her forever." John Updike, Couples, 1968. — John Updike

In past times when one lived in contact with nature, abstraction was easy; it was done unconsciously. Now in our denaturalized age abstraction becomes an effort. — Piet Mondrian

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

Why should art continue to follow nature when every other field has left nature behind? — Piet Mondrian

Art is always of fixed, determined solutions - not things that might as well be different. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

Hint And Suggestion : Admonitory grook addressed to youth
The human spirit sublimates
the impulses it thwarts;
a healthy sex life mitigates
the lust for other sports. — Piet Hein

Reality manifests itself as constant and objective - independent of us, but as changeable in space and time. Consequently, its reflection in us contains both properties. Mixed up in our mind, these properties are confused and we do not have a proper image of reality. — Piet Mondrian

Curves are so emotional. — Piet Mondrian

Just as pure abstract art is not dogmatic, neither is it decorative. — Piet Mondrian

A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Stomach-ache can be a curse;
heart-ache may be even worse;
so thank Heaven on your knees
if you've got but one of these. — Piet Hein

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

True wisdom knows it must comprise some nonsense as a compromise, lest fools should fail to find it wise. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

Mankind
Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don't want to mend
their own ways, but each other's. — Piet Hein

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. — 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

The surface of things gives enjoyment, their interiority gives life. — Piet Mondrian

I'd like to know
what this whole show
is all about
before it's out. — Piet Hein

DREAM INTERPRETATION Simplified.
Everything's either
concave or -vex,
so whatever you dream
will be something with sex. — Piet Hein

Love is like a pineapple, sweet and undefinable. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

The more basic the color, the more inward, the more pure. — Piet Mondrian

Only conscious man can mirror the universal: he can consciously become one with the universal and so can consciously transcend the individual. — Piet Mondrian

The way to grow grand is not: to demand. In life's every field you are what you yield. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

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

All painting - the painting of the past as well as of the present - shows us that its essential plastic means were only line and color. — Piet Mondrian

TIMING TOAST
Grook on how to char for yourself
There's an art of knowing when.
Never try to guess.
Toast until it smokes and then
twenty seconds less. — Piet Hein

Foes of what's cooking see no worth behind it. Those that are looking for nothing will find it. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

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 rhythm of relations of color and size makes the absolute appear in the relativity of time and space. — Piet Mondrian

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. — Piet Mondrian

I think you too recognize the important relationship between philosophy and art, and it is just this relationship that most painters deny. The great masters do grasp it, unconsciously; but I believe that a painter's conscious spiritual knowledge will have a much greater influence upon his art, and that it would be due only to a weakness in him, or lack of genius, should this spiritual knowledge be harmful to his art ... — Piet Mondrian

As Eternity has reckoned There's a lifetime in a second — Piet Hein

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. — Piet Mondrian

A bit beyond perceptions reach I sometimes believe I see that life is two locked boxes each containing the other's key — Piet Hein

I am only satisfied insofar as I feel 'Broadway Boogie Woogie' is a definite progress, but even about this picture I am not quite satisfied. There is still too much of the old in it. — Piet Mondrian

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. — Piet Mondrian

WHAT PEOPLE MAY THINK
Some people cower
and wince and shrink,
owing to fear of
what people may think.
There is one answer
to worries like these:
people may think
what the devil they please. — Piet Hein

Love while you've love to give.
Live while you've got life to live. — Piet Hein

A plant is only worth growing if it looks good when it is dead. — Piet Oudolf

The relation of color and the relation of proportion are both based on the relation of position. — Piet Mondrian

VITA BREVIS
A lifetime
is more
than
sufficiently long
for people to get what there is of it
wrong. — Piet Hein

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

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 ROAD TO WISDOM
The road to wisdom?
Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less. — Piet Hein

REFLECTION ON SIZE
Small people often overrate
the charm of being tall;
which is, that you appreciate
the charm of being small. — Piet Hein

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

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.' — Piet Mondrian

It is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true. — Piet Mondrian