“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.” Mondrian dedicated himself to eliminating all non-essential elements from his work. By 1918 his subject matter consisted of nothing but vertical and horizontal rectangles and lines, his palette limited to black, white, grey, and the primary colours, red, blue and yellow.