Piet Mondrian
Piet Cornelis Mondrian was born on March 7, 1872 in Amersfoort, Netherlands. He was introduced to art at a very young age. Both his father and uncle were artists and they taught him to draw and paint. In 1892 he began teaching at the Academy of Fine Art in Amsterdam. But he continued making his own art work, too.
Mondrian was one of the most important abstract painters of the 20 th century. But his early works were very different from his later pieces. He started out painting realistic things. He painted the world around him and his landscape paintings depict the Dutch countryside. Evening, Red Tree: 1908-1910 Calves in a Field Bordered by a Willow Tree, 1905 Post Impressionist painters such as Van Gogh influenced his use of heavy brush strokes.
Some of his early paintings show the influence of pointillism. Artists like George Seurat used small dots to form images in their paintings instead of solid brushstrokes. Lighthouse in Westkapelle, 1910 Mill in Sunlight, The Winkel Mill, 1908
Some of his paintings were influenced by Fauvist painters like Matisse! Notice the rich colors and simplified subjects. Amaryllis, 1910 The Red Mill, 1911
In 1911, Mondrian discovered Cubism. Mondrian travelled to Paris where he saw exhibits by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Their work started to influence his new pieces. Harbor in Normandy, Georges Braque, 1909 This was art that started exploring the geometric shapes of things. And showing more than one view of something at the same time. Violin and Grapes, Pablo Picasso, 1912
Mondrian s paintings show us that he was embracing Cubism and trying to look at his world in a different way. These two paintings were done just one year apart. We can see how he was not going to stay in Cubism for long. Still Life with Gingerpot II, 1912 Still Life with Gingerpot I, 1911 Cubism was just a stop for Mondrian on his art journey. He was on his way to even further simplification. He was developing a new style of his own
This painting is one of the first times that Piet Mondrian started to make his work more abstract. His natural subjects began to look more abstract. He was leaving behind his old way of painting. He experimented with deconstructing natural landscapes into more basic geometric forms and lines. The Gray Tree, 1911
I believe it is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true. -Piet Mondrian The Tree, 1913 Composition No. 10 (Pier and Ocean), 1915
His natural subjects were being shown in their most basic forms. Sketch for The Sea Mondrian felt that painting was very spiritual. And he was focusing on following his feelings about how to portray things in the simplest way, because he felt that was the most authentic way to represent them. The Sea, 1912
In the 1920 s, Mondrian worked on a series that is nicknamed the Lozenge paintings. They were named after the diamond shape that came with tilting his canvas 45 degrees. Mondrian started to add some color into his compositions. This piece used only shades of gray. Lozenge: Color Planes with Gray Lines, 1919
The Lozenge paintings represent the style that Mondrian called Neo-Plasticism. He limited himself to using only straight, horizontal and vertical lines and primary colors. Artists in the 1960 s, known as minimalists, looked back on his work and adopted the tilted canvas. Tableau I, Lozenge with Four Lines and Gray, 1926 Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue and Red, 1921 He was no longer deconstructing or simplifying subjects that he saw around him. He was painting how he felt the art wished to be represented. Composition with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow and Black, 1925
Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930 Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray and Blue, 1921 This modern abstract art movement that Mondrian created is known as De Stijl. It literally means The Style, and is easily identified by the use of straight lines, right angles and simple colors black, white, gray, blue, red and yellow.
The use of the double line began as an experiment in 1932. Mondrian loved it so much, it became a regular feature in his work. Composition with Red and Blue, 1942 Composition with Double Yellow Line, 1932 Trafalgar Square, 1939-42
Piet Mondrian in his Paris studio, 1933 Composition with Red and Blue, 1933 Composition with Four Yellow Lines, 1933
Piet Mondrian liked to live among his own work. At times, he used his small apartment as both studio and living space. Mondrian s Studio, 15 East 59 th Street, New York City When he was older and living in New York City, he started creating art not just on canvas, but also on his apartment! Like Matisse, Mondrian was happiest surrounded by art. He painted his walls and ceiling the same glossy white as his canvases. Visitors never new what kind composition they were going to find. He tacked large colored bits of paper to his walls and enjoyed moving them around to live in different compositions as the mood struck him!
Mondrian painted in his De Stijl style for 20 years. It evolved as he used the repeating lines. Then he began making the lines different widths. And even moved on to giving color to the lines themselves. 1943 Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-1943
Piet Mondrian died from complications of pneumonia on February 1, 1944 in New York City. This was Mondrian s final piece before his death in 1944. It was still a work-in-progress when he died and so it remains unfinished. Victory Boogie Woogie, 1944 The evolution of his work is so interesting because we can see the influence of other artists and movements that he studied. We can only wonder about what direction his work would have gone next!
Just as Mondrian was influenced by the art that he studied, many people have been inspired by him! Yves Saint Laurent "Mondrian" Day Dress, Autumn 1965
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