Theo Van Doesburg Quotes

#1. When contemplating a work of art it is possible to perceive if it has been created according to the eye or to the spirit, in other words, if it projects three-dimensional reality or spiritual n-dimensionality.

Theo Van Doesburg

#2. Art as language ... in the future there will only be art. This common language will carry the message of love.

Theo Van Doesburg

#3. Every machine is the spiritualization of an organism.

Theo Van Doesburg

#4. In place of the dream, the future will put art on a scientific and technical basis.

Theo Van Doesburg

#5. To be oneself is being neither under bond nor borrowed nor sold nor hired. To be, means to be spiritually free.

Theo Van Doesburg

#6. Each superfluous line, each wrongly placed line, any color placed without veneration or care, can spoil everything, that is, the spiritual.

Theo Van Doesburg

#7. While the expressive possibilities of Neoplasticism are limited to two dimensions (the plane), Elementarism realizes the possibility of plasticism in four dimensions, in the field of time-space.

Theo Van Doesburg

#8. The complete and definitive work of art is created beyond one's individuality ... The universal transcends such a level. Mere spontaneity has never created a work of art which possesses a lasting cultural value. The method leading to universal form is based upon calculations of measure and number.

Theo Van Doesburg

#9. We speak of concrete and not abstract painting because nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a color, a surface.

Theo Van Doesburg

#10. The line has almost become a work of art in itself.

Theo Van Doesburg

#11. There is an old and a new consciousness of the age. The old one is directed towards the individual. The new one is directed towards the universal. The struggle of the individual against the universal may be seen both in the world war and in modern art.

Theo Van Doesburg