If you follow nature you will ...

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.
 See image
 Piet Mondrian

Quotes from the same author

I wish to approach truth as closely as is possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects.
 See image
 Piet Mondrian
Nature or, that which I see, inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation, still just an external foundation, of things.
 See image
 Piet Mondrian
abstract art is not the creation of another reality but the true vision of reality.
 See image
 Piet Mondrian
The truly modern artist is aware of abstraction in an emotion of beauty.
 See image
 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.
 See image
 Piet Mondrian