Piet Mondrian Quotes

I think, like any artist, those baby songs are not the best things you've ever written, but they count because they're you're first attempts at creating art and expressing yourself.

I do not repudiate any of my paintings but there isn't one of them that I would not redo differently, if I had it to redo. My destination is always the same but I work out a different route to get there.

I am just beginning to understand what it is to paint. A painter should have two lives, one in which to learn, and one in which to practice his art.

In reality, however, an artist is a product of art

I wish to be of service to the artists of our own day, by showing them how a small beginning leads to the highest elevation, and how from so noble a situation it is possible to fall to utmost ruin, and consequently, how these arts resemble nature as shown in our human bodies.

A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be one stage in a series of inner transformations.

A work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state overnight. It is barely domesticated, a mustang on which you one day fastened a halter, but which now you cannot catch. It is a lion you cage in your study. As the work grows, it gets harder to control; it is a lion growing in strength. You must visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it. If you skip a day, you are, quite rightly, afraid to open the door to its room. You enter its room with bravura, holding a chair at the thing and shouting, "Simba!

For me becoming a painter was an Everest, in terms of what I thought a painter was. There are many roads to becoming an artist. For me it wasn't art school. I didn't have that go to art school and then get a gallery. It's more like, how deep is your inner library to cull from. It's certainly not about technical prowess, just about depth of investigation. It takes time. I had 15 years of painting under my belt before my first New York show. I was glad to have that. It's a good thing to spend your twenties getting your craft.

Over the years I always did some water colors, and I did a series of pictures of drawings. I always did it during a period of time that was slow in the photo business, but in essence it was always frustrating because I'd get started, and then it would be time to get back to work and I wouldn't get anywhere with the painting.

In life we try to grow and better ourselves. As an artist, I feel like I've grown tremendously.

I want a painting to be difficult to do. The more obstacles, obstructions, problems - if they don't overwhelm - the better. I would like to feel that I am involved at any stage of the painting with all its moments, not just this 'now' moment where a superficial grace is so available.

Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.

Art has been good for my soul. And it's been good for my brain. I think I'm a better painter now than I was a musician growing up. You struggle to see things and translate an image through your hands to a canvas.

I think it's natural for an artist to explore as they evolve.

I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.

Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.

I always wanted to be an artist, writer and poet since I was seven, and one has to live long enough to evolve as an artist and do one's finest work.

When I was a young artist, and I would go look at other artists' career retrospectives, and I was often disappointed with the lack of story line... What was missing to me was the story of where the artist came from and how they got to where they were.

At a certain time, an artist needs a big retrospective. At other times, they need a more focused exhibition. It's a different story each time; it's about establishing a dialogue.

Every painting I do is related to the last one: it may be a continuation of a previous painting or it may be a reaction against it.

As an artist, you keep learning. You draw out different parts of you.

I feel that I am more aware of my artistry.

As an artist, I want to explore as much as I can.

Art is something in which you are never an expert at any point of time. It's something you hone all the time and something which is elusive all the time.

We truly experienced a lot as artists.