Piet
Mondrian was born in Amersfoort, Netherlands in 1872 to a family of painters
and artists where art and music were encouraged. Piet’s father gave him drawing
lessons as a kid, while his uncle, who was a well-known painter, taught Piet
how to paint. This led him to pursue a career in education and became a drawing
teacher, while still actively painting. The environment of the Netherlands
where he drew naturalistic landscapes and incorporated his signature abstract
design and primary colors influenced the beginning of his career. When he moved
to Paris, Piet became influenced by the Cubist style of Picasso and this
greatly impacted his future work.
The Gray Tree (1912)
The Gray Tree (1912)
embodies Mondrian’s early transition towards abstraction of naturalistic
scenery and the influence of Cubist design. The reason why Mondrian changed the
landscape of European art was because many artists of the time period were
depicting realistic, naturally occurring paintings, where in this painting the
three-dimensional tree has been reduced to lines and planes using only gray and
black colors. Mondrian’s later paintings of tress were abstracted to the
extreme of being barely detectable through the use of horizontal and vertical
lines.
Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow,
Black, Gray, and Blue (1921)
Once World War I had
ended, Mondrian returned to Paris where he would become fully immersed in
abstraction painting. This is when he began producing the majority of his work as
the grid-like style, filled with primary colors and bold horizontal and
vertical lines. The use of asymmetry, different sizes and colors of shapes
creates the flow of the piece that speaks to the rhythm of modern life
according to Mondrian. To create a sense of depth in these seemingly plain
paintings, Mondrian would use different brush stroke techniques to make certain
colors appear to be closer or farther away. This abstract style set him apart
from other artists of his time and gave him renowned recognition.
Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1942-43)
During the time of this
painting, Mondrian had moved from London to New York City where he would spend
the rest of his living days. The inspiration behind this painting comes from
the exuberance and energy of New York City, while also portraying the tempo of
jazz music of that time period. This painting is much different than his
previous pieces because of the use of lines of color intermixed with blocks of
solid color. The yellow lines and asymmetric distribution of red and blue
blocks represent taxi cabs picking up people from stop light to stop light in
the busy city of Manhattan and New York City. This was Piet Mondrian’s final
completed painting as a symbol of his developing style of abstraction and
simplicity.
Piet Mondrian set the
path for abstract art and became the trendsetter of the De Stijl art movement.
He showed that abstraction and simplicity could be just as sophisticated and
detailed as natural and realistic paintings. He also showed that use of primary
colors, straight lines and corners, and geometry in a painting could create a
narrative that speaks to the culture of his time. His work is now on display in
Manhattan and several other museums in the Netherlands.
References
Deicher, Susanne (1995). Piet Mondrian,
1872–1944: Structures in Space. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen.
Falconer, M. (2013). Piet Mondrian Biography,
Art, and Analysis of Works. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet.htm
Piet Mondrian. (2015).
The Biography.com website. Retrieved, Feb 27, 2015, from
http://www.biography.com/people/piet-mondrian-9411728.
Threlfall, T. (1988).
Piet Mondrian: His life's work and evolution, 1872 to 1944. New York: Garland
Pub. Print.
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