“Only now [1943] I become conscious that my work in black, white and little color planes has been merely 'drawing' in oil color. In drawing, the lines are the principal means of expressions... In painting, however, the lines are absorbed by the color planes; but the limitations of the planes show themselves as lines and conserve their great value.”

— Piet Mondrian

note from his postcard, late May 1943; as quoted in Mondrian, - The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 240
1940's

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Piet Mondrian 95

Peintre Néerlandais 1872–1944

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“We speak of concrete and not abstract painting because nothing is more concrete, more real then a line, a colour, a surface. A woman, a tree, a cow; are these concrete elements in a painting? No. A woman, a tree and a cow are concrete only in nature; in painting they are abstract, illusionistic, vague and speculative. However, a plane is a plane, a line is a line and no more or no less than that. 'Concrete paintin.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Spirit has arrived at the age of maturity...
Quote in 'Comments on the basic of concrete painting', Paris, January 1930, in 'Art Concret', April 1930, pp. 2–4
1926 – 1931

“However, new plasticism is pure painting [in contrast with the opinion of Theo van Doesburg, then]: the means of expression still are form and color, though these are completely interiorized; the straight line and flat color remain purely pictorial means of expression.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

1910's, Natural Reality and Abstract Reality', 1919

“I mixed [early 1950's] funny shades of colors and used them but I used them because they made the drawing in my picture move. It wasn't because I was in love with the idea of putting color down. But these colors were the expedient things to use for the way I drew and I say 'draw' not meaning line, though it might have included line. But the way I drew or envisioned or made my work. And it happened that it came out stressing color. But I did not have a vision or a notion about color per se being the thing that would make me or my pictures work or operate.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

quote about shades and drawing
1960s, Interview with Barbara Rose', Archives - American Art, 1968

“A work based only on a line concept is scarcely more than a illustration; it fails to achieve pictorial structure. Pictorial structure is based on a plane concept. The line originates in the meeting of two planes … we can lose ourselves in a multitude of lines, if through them we lose our senses for the planes.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Terms' p. 71
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: it's all over. Basic colors. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no representation.”

Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956) Russian artist and photographer

Quote in: 'The Death of Painting'; from the MoMA-website: Interactives: texts https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1998/rodchenko/texts/death_of_painting.html
Rodchenko is looking back: in 1921 he executed what were arguably some of the first true monochromes (artworks of one color; source, Wikipedia:Rodchenko)

“Like the disposition of planes, the proportion of these planes and their colors seemed to depend only upon chance, and I declared that these works were ordered 'according to the law of chance', just like in the order of nature.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Source: 1960s, Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs (1966), p. 307

“I see colors like you hear jet planes.”

Dave Eggers book How We Are Hungry

Source: How We Are Hungry

“Drawing is but a means to an end. One imagines that drawing can be beautiful-it is not the lines which are beautiful, but what they signify, the sentiments which they translate. In reality, there is no such thing as beauty in drawing, or color beauty lies alone in revelation of truth.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

RODIN, AUGUSTE. L'Art. Entretiens réunis par Paul Gsell, 1911

“Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of color may make it vague and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Interview with Einstein (1930)

“[I] launched a new offensive against the fortress of painting. First, white thinned out in linseed oil as a general base. Second, color the entire surface lightly by applying very large areas of different colors that swim into one other and that must remain free of any effect of chiaroscuro. Third, a drawing, independent of and substituting for the unformulated tonal values. Then, at the end, some bass notes to ward off flabbiness, not too dark, but colored bass notes. This is the style that connects drawing and the realm of color, a saving transfer of my fundamental graphic talent into the domain of painting”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1911), Diary # 875; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.htmlparagraph
1911 - 1914

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Piet Mondrian 95

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