piet mondrian art movement
Piet Mondrian is a Dutch artist best known for his abstract paintings. Art that is abstract does not show things that are recognisable such as people, objects or landscapes. Instead artists use colours, shapes and textures to achieve their effect
Squares, straight lines. and dance moves! Explore the abstract art of Piet Mondrian
To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual.”
When World War II began, Piet Mondrian decided to make the move over to London, and he eventually wound up in the US, living in New York. In 1942 he held his first solo exhibit; this was only a few years prior to his death in 1944. The work was presented in a large gallery in NYC, and was accepted by visitors as well as his piers in the art world.
Mondrian’s earliest paintings showing a degree of abstraction are a series of canvases from 1905 to 1908 that depict dim scenes of indistinct trees and houses reflected in still water. Although the result leads the viewer to begin focusing on the forms over the content, these paintings are still firmly rooted in nature, and it is only the knowledge of Mondrian’s later achievements that leads one to search in these works for the roots of his future abstraction.
As the years progressed, lines began to take precedence over forms in Mondrian’s paintings. In the 1930s, he began to use thinner lines and double lines more frequently, punctuated with a few small colored forms, if any at all. Double lines particularly excited Mondrian, for he believed they offered his paintings a new dynamism which he was eager to explore. The introduction of the double line in his work was influenced by the work of his friend and contemporary Marlow Moss. [27]
Mondrian termed the resulting artistic style Neo-Plasticism, or the new plastic art. For Mondrian, “plastic” merely referred to a novel way of representing reality, found upon the surface of the painting itself. Dedicated to the “absolute devaluation of tradition” the artists of De Stijl emphasized “the need for abstraction and simplification” and limited the elements in their paintings to straight horizontal and vertical lines, right angles, the three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and the three achromatic colors (grey, white, and black). The De Stijl movement proved to have a major international influence on architecture, art, typography, and interior design throughout the 20 th century.
Prior to the start of World War II, Mondrian moved to London for two years before settling in New York City in 1940. While in London in 1938, Mondrian met and became friends with Peggy Guggenheim, an amity that led to Guggenheim’s staunch support of the Dutch expatriate, both within London and later in New York where she exhibited Mondrian’s works at her Art of This Century Gallery. Mondrian was introduced to the burgeoning New York avant-garde art scene and joined the American Abstract Artists – additionally legitimizing the new group’s role in modern art through his mentorship in European abstraction.
Piet Mondrian, a painter, was an important leader in the development of modern abstract art, primarily through the Dutch art movement known as De Stijl (“The Style”). His mature paintings use the simplest combinations of straight lines, right angles, primary colours, and black, white, and gray and possess an extreme formal purity.
Pieter was the second child of Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan, Sr., who was an amateur draftsman and headmaster of a Calvinist primary school in Amersfoort. The boy grew up in a stable yet creative environment; his father was part of the Protestant orthodox circle that formed around the conservative Calvinist politician Abraham Kuyper, and his uncle, Frits Mondriaan, belonged to the Hague school of landscape painters. Both uncle and father gave him guidance and instruction when, at age 14, he began to study drawing.
References:
http://www.piet-mondrian.org/
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian
http://m.theartstory.org/artist/mondrian-piet/life-and-legacy/
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Piet-Mondrian
http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/shop/piet-mondrian-art-lessons/