Mondrian carried abstraction to its furthest limits. Through radical simplification of composition and color, he sought to expose the basic principles that underlie all appearances. [click on image for full self-portrait >]
Born in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, Mondrian embarked on an artistic career
over his family's objections, studying at the Amsterdam Academy of Fine
Arts. His early works, through 1907, were calm landscapes painted in delicate
grays, mauves, and dark greens. In 1908, under the influence of the Dutch
painter Jan
Toorop, he began to experiment with brighter colors; this represented
the beginning of his attempts to transcend nature. Moving to Paris in 1911,
Mondrian adopted a cubist-influenced style, producing analytical series
such as Trees (1912-1913) and Scaffoldings (1912-1914).
He moved progressively from seminaturalism through increased abstraction,
arriving finally at a style in which he limited himself to small vertical
and horizontal brushstrokes. In 1917 Mondrian and the Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg founded De Stijl magazine, in which Mondrian developed his theories of a new art form he called neoplasticism. He maintained that art should not concern itself with reproducing images of real objects, but should express only the universal absolutes that underlie reality. He rejected all sensuous qualities of texture, surface, and color, reducing his palette to flat primary colors. His belief that a canvas—a plane surface—should contain only planar elements led to his abolition of all curved lines in favor of straight lines and right angles. His masterly application of these theories led to such works
as
Composition
with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1942, 39x35cm), in which the painting,
composed solely of a few black lines and well-balanced blocks of color,
creates a monumental effect out of all proportion to its carefully limited
means. [< image]When Mondrian moved to New York City in 1940, his style became freer and more rhythmic, and he abandoned severe black lines in favor of lively chain-link patterns of bright colors, particularly notable in his last complete masterwork, Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1943, 127x127cm). Mondrian was one of the most influential 20th-century artists. His theories of abstraction and simplification not only altered the course of painting but also exerted a profound influence on architecture, industrial design, and the graphic arts. Mondrian died in New York.
— [Nederlands biografie]
— LINKS
–- Self Portrait (1918)
— Place de la Concorde (1943) _ This picture cries out for the contributions of other painters. So the pseudonymous Piété “Corne Lisse” Mondepleuran has secured the cooperation of the equally pseudonymous (but not necessarily distinct) Prangard Domage, Sam Lecram, and Avoine Noirtanck, to concoct:
_ Le Monde Riant Autour des Dégas à la Place de la Concorde (846x936pix, 81kb _ ZOOM to 1269x1404pix, 176kb)
_ Moan, Dry Ann, as You Circle Clockwise Concord Square in Paris (846x936pix, 81kb _ ZOOM to 1269x1404pix, 176kb)
_ Moan , Dry Ann, as You Circle Counter-Clockwise Concord Square in Paris (735x833pix, 72kb _ ZOOM to 1103x1250pix, 160kb)
— Painting No. 9 (1942; 1600x1460pix, 342kb) _ Mondepleuran is thinking up some ridiculous titles for future transformations of this picture; he already came up with
_ Panting Numb Bernard (<2020?; ?x?pix, ?kb) and
_ Paint Tin Number Known (<2020?; ?x?pix, ?kb).
— Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow (1930; 503x500pix, 36kb) _ You may prefer the bandwith saving, but better rendition by Mondepleuran: Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow (600x600pix, 4kb) and, even more so, what Mondrian was capable of doing, but didn't:
_ Red Farm, Blue, Yellow, and a Tiny Mondrian (600x600pix, 18kb).
— (white, black, blue, yellow, red) (1921; 1188x1197pix, 191kb)
–- Composition A en Rouge et Blanc (1936, 43x33cm; 603x465pix, 15kb) _ When there is a greater fool who will pay $5'289'500 (of 08 May 2002) for 5 black straight lines and 6 rectangles in 3 flat colors, it is not surprising that there is a cunning salesman who will write such drivel as the following: The precision and purity of Mondrian's linear compositions of the 1930s have come to define the sophisticated, streamlined aesthetic of 20th century Modernism. During the late 1920s and 1930s, Mondrian concerned himself with the essence of art, stripping his paintings of all secondary imagery and extraneous detail that he had employed at earlier points in his career, and concentrated instead on creating pictures that communicated universal notions of beauty through pure form. His paintings of this period stressed the importance of balance and the economy of line in order to demonstrate the inherent beauty of geometry. In his many published treatises on these paintings, Mondrian called his artistic objective “Neo-Plasticism”. Simplifying his compositions to the point of pure abstraction, he intended his paintings to “complement society not as propaganda or as applied art but by its plastic expression alone. To understand this it is necessary to know what this pure art involves, to know that it is a genuine and living expression of universal equilibrium”. Mondrian painted Composition A en rouge et blanc in 1936 in Paris, just when his egalitarian ideas about art and society were becoming more widely known in Europe and in the United States. This painting played a significant role in promulgating Mondrian's artistic ideas and solidifying his reputation abroad. Shortly after its completion, Mondrian sent this work to London to the painter Ben Nicholson, a leading member of the group of British artists who published Circle, International Survey of Constructivist Art in 1937. Through Nicholson, whom he had met in 1934, Mondrian was able to market his art in England, and subsequently show his work at two significant exhibitions in London in 1936. The present work was featured at one of these exhibitions, Modern Paintings for Modern Rooms, sponsored by the prominent furniture design firm, Duncan Miller Ltd. Following Mondrian's advice, Nicholson sold this painting to the architect Leslie Martin later that year. Both Nicholson and Martin were greatly impressed by the philosophical ideas behind Mondrian's paintings of 1936, and requested that he elaborate on these theories for a scholarly journal that would be published in 1937. In the resulting article, “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art”, Mondrian explained the philosophy governing his paintings of this era: “Gradually art is purifying its plastic means and thus bringing out the relationships between them. Thus, in our day two main tendencies appear: the one maintains the figuration, the other eliminates it. While the former employs more or less completed and partial forms, the latter uses simple and neutral forms, or, ultimately, the free line and the pure color. It is evident that the latter (non-figurative art) can more easily and thoroughly free itself from the domination of the subjective than can the figurative tendency; particular forms and colors (figurative art) are more easily exploited than neutral forms. It is, however, necessary to point out that the definitions ‘figurative’ and ‘non-figurative’ are only approximate and relative. For every form, even every line represents a figure, no form is absolutely neutral. Clearly, everything must be relative, but since we need words to make our concepts understandable, we must keep these terms”. Mondrian's distinctive style of painting, as represented in Composition A en rouge et blanc and Composition blanc et rouge, is the culmination of a stylistic development that commenced with his study of the Cubist works of Gris and Léger that he saw while living in Paris during the 1910s. But the strict linearity of his compositions of the 1930s, with their rectilinear grids and minimalist planes, is a distillation of the form of language that evolved while he was associating with the architect and painter Theo van Doesburg and the architect J.J.P. Oud with whom he collaborated from 1917-1924 on the Dutch art and architectural journal, De Stijl. In the present work, Mondrian's preoccupation with the compartmentalization and manipulation of space is a testament to the influence of the architectural and design concepts of his colleagues. The primacy of the line was the defining factor of Mondrian's paintings of this period, as is most evident in Composition A en rouge et blanc. Here, Mondrian has used double lines across the top third of the canvas, a structural device that he had first incorporated into his paintings in 1932. With these bands of black, Mondrian has divided into three sections the block of red in the upper left quadrant of the painting, adding to the spatial range and geometric complexity of the composition. The startlingly simplified palette of white, red and muted grey underscores Mondrian's strict adherence to the formal principles which he tirelessly promoted in his writings of the 1930s. Writing on Mondrian's use of color and line, Hans L. C. Jaffé has described the style which solidified Mondrian's reputation: “The years from 1933 to 1938, which Mondrian spent in Paris, are marked by a series of compositions in which the linear elements set the tone and the color is more or less reduced to an accompanying voice. The origin of these linear compositions is to be found in the series of paintings of 1930 and the following years in which the tension and nuances of the lines constitute the most important compositional elements; the consequences of these works are to be seen in the development of Mondrian's art”. This canvas once hung over the desk of Philip Sandblom, who considered it an object of meditation and contemplation. Writing in his famous essay “Disease and Genius”, Sandblom selected a passage by Mondrian that aptly describes this masterpiece: “It is the line, the color and their relations which must bring into play the whole sensual and intellectual register of the inner life”.
–- Paysage à Montmorency (08 Aug 1930, 47x55cm; 669x800pix, 46kb) badly yellowed by aging _ This has been cleaned up and greatly improved by Mondepleuran, who, by transforming the simplistic Composition A en Rouge et Blanc, has created
_ Mont Pala au Tricolore (2006; 900x1086pix, 2kb), which he then used as the frame in
_ Mont Ranci au Tricolore (2006; 900x1086pix, 92kb).
–- Geinrust Farm with Isolated Tree (1906, 47x64cm; 601x800pix, 57kb) plenty of trees (one much taller than the others), no farm. _ Here too, Mondepleuran has created a frame in Mondrian's later simplistic style,
_ Green Rust with Isolated Three (2006; 880x1086pix, 2kb), and inserted the landscape, resulting in
_ Green Rust with Isolated Farm (2006; 880x1086pix, 63kb).
— River View with Boat (1908)
–- Little Girl (1901)
–- Still Life with Gingerpot II
–- Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray (1921)
–- Composition blanc, rouge et jaune (1936)
— River View with Boat (1908)
— Molen (Mill); Mill in Sunlight
— Avond (Evening); Red Tree (1908 )
— Amaryllis (1910)
— Gray Tree (1911)
— Composition No. II; Composition in Line and Color (1913; 628x829pix, 100kb) dull colors to be precise. But that is exactly the kind of challenge which Mondepleuran takes up, and he has made of this, in bright colors and with symmetry, not one, but two pictures with palindromic names:
_ Line Nil (2006; 1000x1414pix, 618kb) and
_ Lune Nul (2006; 1000x1414pix, 637kb)
— Ocean 5 (1915; 610x831pix, 93kb) dirty yellow, a jumble of vertical and horizontal line segments inside an oval; if that is an ocean, it is terribly polluted... That is intolerable to Mondepleuran, who has cleaned up the ocean (by making a negative) and offers you
_ Monde Ocean Bleu (2006; screen filling, 173kb)
— The Song of Color: Composition no.1 (1924 color lithograph 49x31cm; kb) _ Here Mondepleuran has taken a different approach. He has kept a Mondrian-like set of rectangles, but made it symmetrical, and, instead of Mondrian's few and flat colors, has filled the rectangles with a riot of colors and textures in
_ The Symphony of Colors: Disposition Infinity aka Nose Son (2006; screen filling, 206kb _ ZOOM to 1864x2636pix, 1376kb) and even more extravagantly in
_ Le Songe des Couleurs en Positions Definitives aka Musk Sum (2006; screen filling, 335kb _ ZOOM to 1864x2636pix, 2891kb)
— Composition with Color Planes and Gray Lines 1 (1918; 572x700pix, 66kb)
— Composition with Gray and Light Brown (1918)
— Composition A: Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue (1920)
— Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray (1921)
— Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue (1921; 814x772pix, 64kb) or in Mondepleuran's efficient rendition:
_ Recomposition with Red, Yellow and Blue (600x600pix, 8kb)
— Composition with Blue, Yellow, Black, and Red (1922; 655x668pix, 40kb)
— Lozenge Composition with Red, Black, Blue, and Yellow (1925)
— Fox Trot; Lozenge Composition with Three Black Lines (1929)
— Composition with Yellow Patch (1930)
— Composition with Yellow (1930)
— Composition No. III Blanc-Jaune (1942; 1021x531pix, 64kb) _ It also has blue, red, and black. Mondepleuran's version loads instantly, has cleaner colors, and fits better in a computer screen:
_ Composition No.111 Blanc-Jaune-Bleu-Rouge-Noir (2006; 600x800pix, 3kb). But much preferable is Mondepleuran's twin maximalist transformations of a combination of this and another (left to the curiosity of the viewer to identify) of Mondrian's simplistic pictures:
_ Astoundingly Beautiful Colors (2007; 724x1024pix, 188kb _ ZOOM to 1024x1448pix, 427kb _ ZOOM+ to 1864x2636pix, 3724kb) and
_ Beautifully Astounding Colors (2007; 724x1024pix, 188kb _ ZOOM to 1024x1448pix, 427kb _ ZOOM+ to 1864x2636pix, 3724kb)
— Rhythm of Black Lines (1942; 924x904pix, 169kb)
— Vertical Composition with Blue and White (1936)
— Composition No. 8 (1942)
— Composition No. 10 (1942, 80x73cm; 968x882pix, 83kb) _ For those who appreciate the power of negative thinking, Mondepleuran has created
_ Composition Minus 10 (2005; full screen, 68kb)
— New York City (1942)
— Broadway Boogie Woogie (1943)
— Solitary House (1898)
— Composition with Oval in Color Planes II (1914)
— Composition with Grid VII (Lozenge, 1919)
— Composition with Grid IX (1919)
— Composition A (1920)
— Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue (1921)
— Lozenge Composition with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow, and Black (1925)
— New York City I (1942)
— Victory Boogie Woogie (1943)
— DSC01173 (765x1171pix, 124kb) what Mondrian might have done if he had lost his ruler and his paints, hated white, but had plenty of crayons.
—(090201)
