“In addition, 'Elementarism' is real instead of abstract. The use of the term 'abstract' also caused much misunderstanding. This is easily explained... As used in connection with visual methods of expression, the term 'abstract' is extremely relative. 'To abstract' something implies one of those mental activities (in contrast to emotional spontaneity) through which certain [aesthetic] values are isolated from the world of reality. However, when such values were realized visually and applied as purely constructive means, they became real. Thus the abstract was transformed into the real, thereby illustrating the relativity of the former term. Hence, the term ‘abstract-real’ [proposed by his former artist-fellow Piet Mondrian, ] was a fortunate invention, although in reference to a new orientation [van Doesburg's new art orientation 'Elementarism'] the term 'real' is sufficient. The period of abstraction is at an end. Is not an elementary painting, which is to say a certain composition of plane-linear colours, organic in itself, more concrete…”

—  Theo van Doesburg

Quote from Van Doesburg's article 'Elementarism as real art', in: 'Painting and plastic art' - Rome, July 1926, in De Stijl', series XIII, 1 75-6, 1926, pp. 35–43
1926 – 1931

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In addition, 'Elementarism' is real instead of abstract. The use of the term 'abstract' also caused much misunderstandi…" by Theo van Doesburg?
Theo van Doesburg photo
Theo van Doesburg 46
Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer 1883–1931

Related quotes

Marshall McLuhan photo

“By phonemic transformation into visual terms, the alphabet became a universal, abstract, static container of meaningless sounds.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 15

Daniel Levitin photo

“Both poetry and lyrics and all visual arts draw their power from their ability to express abstractions of reality. …that is a feature of the musical brain.”

Daniel Levitin book The World in Six Songs

The World in Six Songs (2008)
Context: Both poetry and lyrics and all visual arts draw their power from their ability to express abstractions of reality.... that is a feature of the musical brain.

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky photo

“There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world.”

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1792–1856) Russian mathematician of Ukrainian origin

As quoted in George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane, Springer (1998 [1975]), p. 225; also in Stanley Gudder, A Mathematical Journey, McGraw-Hill (1976), p. 36.

“Before 1940 there was relatively little abstract art in America. Most of it was relatively geometric versions of Cubism, or of Mondrian and De Stijl, or of Arp reliefs, and the like. So that when our painting [of the artists of the New York School: Abstract Expressionism first appeared, the critics at once realized that to describe it as 'abstract' would be misleading... In America, the word (I suppose taken from Germany) for something highly emotional is 'expressionist', and some critic, either in the New Yorker or the New York Times then called it Abstract Expressionism, meaning that this was a very emotional art, but an abstract one.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

first published in 'Metro', 1962; as cited in Interviews with American Artists, by David Sylvester; Chatto & Windus, London 2001, p. 80
1960s, Interview with David Sylvester', (1960)

James Braid photo

“…a peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual eye, on one object, not of an exciting nature.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

In Beyond the Keynesian Endpoint: Crushed by Credit and Deceived by Debt — How … (24 October 2011) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=9uFbtlkYY08C&pg=PA197, p. 197.

“Language is the most formless means of expression. Its capacity to describe concepts without physical or visual references carries us into an advanced state of abstraction.”

Ian Wilson (conceptual artist) (1940–2020) American artist, born 1940

Source: Conceptual Art, (1984), as cited in: " Ian Wilson, plug in #47; exhibition 27/09/2008 - 08/03/2009 http://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/programme/detail/?tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bptype%5D=18&tx_vabdisplay_pi1%5Bproject%5D=349 at Van Abbemuseum.nl, The Netherlands.

“It makes no difference whether a work is naturalistic or abstract; every visual expression follows the same fundamental laws.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Excerpts from the Teaching of Hans Hofmann', p. 61
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

George Berkeley photo

“Abstract terms (however useful they may be in argument) should be discarded in meditation, and the mind should be fixed on the particular and the concrete, that is, on the things themselves.”

George Berkeley book De Motu

Paragraph 4.
De Motu (1721)

“Object-oriented programming increases the value of these metrics by managing this complexity. The most effective tool available for dealing with complexity is abstraction. Many types of abstraction can be used, but encapsulation is the main form of abstraction by which complexity is managed in object-oriented programming.
Programming in an object-oriented language, however, does not ensure that the complexity of an application will be well encapsulated. Applying good programming techniques can improve encapsulation, but the full benefit of object-oriented programming can be realized only if encapsulation is a recognized goal of the design process.”

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

Source: Object-oriented design: a responsibility-driven approach (1989), p. 71

Related topics