Cubism did not accept the logical consequences of its own discoveries; it was not developing abstraction towards its own goal, the expression of pure reality.
Interpretation
This quote critiques Cubism for not fully embracing the potential of its own innovations in art.
Piet Mondrian's statement highlights that while Cubism made significant strides in understanding and depicting reality, it failed to pursue the abstraction it could have achieved. Instead of fully exploring the expression of pure reality through abstraction, Cubism remained limited by its own discoveries, suggesting a missed opportunity for deeper artistic exploration.
In practice
This quote could be used in an art critique to discuss the limitations of Cubism.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The emotion of beauty is always obscured by the appearance of the object. Therefore, the object must be eliminated from the picture.
The truly modern artist is aware of abstraction in an emotion of beauty.
If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a short story in five pages. Furthermore, a short story is a perfect place to learn the craft.
This is a writerβs lesson: To learn that the sounds that we imagine can be the clearest, loudest sounds of all.
The music, while it lasted, brought a new world into being.
It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . to change through the force of his art that old whispering "I want to be white," hidden in the aspirations of his people, to "Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!"
They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts; not their dimination or destruction.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
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