"And then about whether or not to work from a given in nature. In my view, you [ Van Doesburg ] define this in a rather narrow sense. In the main, I do agree with you that the destruction of the natural, and it reconstruction, must be accomplished according to a spiritual image, but I believe that we should take a broad view here. What is natural does not have to be a representation of something. I'm now working on a thing that is a reconstruction of a starry sky ['Composition, Checkerboard Dark Colours', 1919] and yet I'm making it without a given from nature. Someone who says he uses a theme from nature can be right, but also someone who says he uses nothing at all."
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Quote in Mondrian's letter to Theo van Doesburg, 18 April 1919; as cited in Mondrian, - The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, pp. 125-6
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian
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Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan (after 1912: Piet Mondrian). (March 7, 1872 – February 1, 1944) was a Dutch painter starting in Dutch impressionism but soon started to develop abstraction from his landscape paintings. He became an inspiring leader of the De Stijl art movement and group, together with Theo van Doesburg. Mondrian proclaimed 'Neo Plasticism' as a completely new, Abstract art style.
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