The editors of Buro 24/7 Ukraine are starting a series of publications dedicated to the connection between fashion and art. In the first article we will talk about the influence of the Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian on the works fashion designers since the 60s of the last century
Peter Cornelis Mondrian began his creative path from mannered impressionism, and ended with strict geometric abstraction. Most recognizable works Dutch artist today his later works are in the author's artistic system"neoplasticism". “In the future, the realization of pure expression of form will replace art,” the artist declared manifestly in one of his theoretical works. The iconoclastic desire of many avant-garde artists to bury figurative art did not prevent Mondrian from creating his own pictorial icons of the art of the last century - his most famous work Dutch master The color composition is considered to be “Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black” written in 1921.
Piet Mondrian. "Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black", 1921
The 1944 canvas, entitled “The Victory of Boogie-Woogie,” is called the culmination of neoplasticism. Painted shortly after the artist’s arrival in New York, the painting marks a new period of his work, but in it one can also discern the influence of the artist’s early cubist experiments. A distinctive feature of the painting is its diamond-shaped shape, the canvas is rotated 45 degrees. The painting is now in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in The Hague. This last piece the artist he was working on before being hospitalized, Mondrian died of pneumonia on February 1, 1944 and was buried in Brooklyn's Cypress Hill Cemetery.
Piet Mondrian. "Boogie on Broadway", 1942-1943
The sixties were marked by the movement of the fashion capital from pompous Paris to youthful London, to Carnaby Street, the center of mobs and swinging youth. Of course, French designers could not give up so easily and also followed the slogan “moderation and accuracy.” First of all, such a motto proclaimed modernism and minimalism, and for the French couturier Yves Saint Laurent, these concepts intersected in the works of Piet Mondrian. In 1965, the designer created the “Mondrian” collection, which became one of the most high-profile precedents of fashion’s homage to art.
Now that Jil Sander is sending models down the catwalk wearing sweaters with Picasso canvases, and Opening Ceremony and Vans are dedicating a collection to René Magritte, the idea of transferring painting onto fabric and creating clothes from it no longer seems particularly innovative, but for the 60s it was a little Isn't it a revolution? Absolute conciseness, clear lines and a tempting correspondence with key trends in women's fashion The 60s (the miniskirt, which Mary Quant had invented three years earlier, and the A-line silhouette) made the collection a masterpiece of its time. The most authoritative glossies of that time vying with each other, Saint Laurent’s “Mondrian” dresses were given a separate chapter in most fashion encyclopedias, and now the collection is presented as part of an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum as the first and most high-profile collaboration between the fashion world and the world of art.
The attractiveness of Mondrian’s works for representatives of the fashion cluster as a whole is clear: on the one hand, it is geometricity, which is relevant for designers of completely different types, and on the other hand, colorism, consisting of primary colors that are not exchanged for shades and halftones. All designers who worked with the legacy of the abstract artist choose own themes for references. For Diane von Furstenberg and Hervé Legere, these were clear dark stripes demarcating blocks of different colors, while Moschino quoted the most famous painting artist, only replacing the red square insert with an image of a heart. But the closer we get to modern times, the more designers try to abandon direct borrowing and move closer to more subtle hints. For example, the summer collection of Céline bags is a clear demonstration of this principle: here Phoebe Philo borrowed those very lively, bright and pure colors from Piet Mondrian; Raf Simons did the same, creating dresses for his first cruise collection as creative director of the Christian Dior house. Alexander McQueen, in turn, used the principle of “both yours and ours”: the ballet flats from their spring collection are almost identical to Mondrian’s sentiments, but the tribal-style dress from the same proposal shows how easily and naturally you can turn abstraction into ethnicity.
A great artist always leaves behind paintings filled not only with meanings, but also with mysteries. Especially if he is an abstract painter. This article gives a biography of the artist Piet Mondrian, paintings with the name and history of the creation of the most famous of them.
The artist Mondrian: childhood
Pete was born in the Netherlands, in a small provincial town called Amersfoort. In general, initially, the boy's name was Peter Cornelis Mondrian. It was later, to make it easier for the public to “assimilate” the name of the new artist, Mondrian began to sign his name as Piet.
His father was a teacher and later became the director of a small school. The family was very pious, and it was from his father that Pete learned such things as patience, hard work, diligence and modesty. Despite his fame, the artist retained these features even after time.
After graduating from school, Mondrian left for Amsterdam.
First steps in creativity
Having entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam in 1892, Mondrian plunged headlong into artistic creativity. One of his teachers is Opost Allebe, whom Pete treats with the deepest respect and veneration.
Since 1895, he began to study in the evening, because his financial situation forced him to paint portraits or copies of famous paintings for exhibitions during the day. Very often, the artist Piet Mondrian (those around him already know him by that name) goes off to paint sketches somewhere on the river bank, outside the city. One of the most from this period is “The Mill on the River Bank”. For the first time this painting was exhibited in the museum contemporary art in NYC. And for the first time it was “declared” to the creative bohemia that such an artist as Piet Mondrian had appeared. A photo of the master is shown below.
Teachers and influence
The artist Mondrian began teaching in a small art school for children, which brought him, albeit small, but stable money. The same period was marked by the emergence of the artist as a very high-quality landscape painter, writing in the spirit of impressionism.
Back at the end of the nineteenth century, the artist Piet Mondrian met the theosophical adept Albert Bril, who was beginning his studies. Under the influence of the latter, the artist began a period of fascination with mysticism, esotericism and non-canonical religion. Ten years later, Piet would join the Dutch Theosophical Society. Of course, like a child’s religious education, new hobbies will greatly affect the artist’s entire subsequent work.
After he visited the “Cubist” exhibition in Amsterdam in 1911, he became very interested in “Cubism” and even tried himself in this manner. Mondrian was especially keen on Picasso's work. Pete moves to Paris, works in a workshop and tries not to miss his colleagues' exhibitions. If we talk about the period of passion for “cubism”, then we can name the painting “Apple Tree in Bloom”.
Becoming an artist
Piet Mondrian begins to travel a lot around Europe - for educational purposes. I visited Spain, then began traveling around Holland. Settles in the small village of Uden, in the province of Brabant.
Below are some paintings with names and descriptions. Piet Mondrian is gradually gaining strength as an expressionist, although, of course, he is still looking for the style in which he would like to work. Experts note that in the paintings of the early twentieth century the colors are very strong, and the plot fades into the background.
For example:
- "Evening landscape".
- "Farm in Nistelrode".
- "Red Cloud"
- "Forest near Ule".
- "Lighthouse on the Westkapelle".
- "Dune V".
- "Silver Tree"
Recognition and criticism of contemporaries
While the First was going on World War, artist Piet Mondrian spent all his time in his homeland, the Netherlands. In 1915, together with the artist Theo van Doesburg, with whom he became very close friends at that time, he founded the artists' movement "Style", and at the same time the magazine of the same name, in which he preached his views on artistic creativity future. Critics and researchers of the artist Mondrian believe that it was this magazine that became a kind of platform for the development of the views of neoplasticism. This style is based on a scrupulous, detailed transfer of the artist’s inner state or some particular emotion, with a very ascetic set of colors or forms, be it geometric figures, lines and so on.
Style and direction
Mondrian painted his paintings according to a pattern that experts call “plus-minus.” That is, if we consider the artist’s canvases solely from the point of view of what forms are depicted there, we can see an overwhelming number of horizontal and vertical intersections - “plus or minus”. The artist called for a complete abandonment of natural forms, believing that only abstraction is capable of conveying everything that is going on in the human soul.
Also, many researchers of the artist’s work note that makes a lot of sense in his paintings there is “masculine and feminine.” Twisting spiral figures, rounded ocean shapes - all this refers to the feminine, while billowing beacons, walls, vertical rays - to the masculine. For example, the painting “The Pier and the Ocean” is a combination of feminine smoothness with masculine sharpness.
Despite the fact that by the end of the First World War, Mondrian had already won his “place in the sun” in the world of artistic creativity, he continued to carry out real experiments with color, form and content of his paintings. In 1918, a whole series of canvases was painted, where the main figure is a rhombus. For example: "Composition. Diamond with gray lines" or "Composition. Plans light colors with gray lines."
Two years later, the artist Mondrian sets out his views on modern art in general and on artistic creativity in particular, in his work entitled “Natural Reality and Abstract Reality” (this work was later republished under the title “Neoplasticism”). IN this work the artist also gave his division of colors, shapes and other things from which any picture is built. He divided colors into: “primary” - red, blue, yellow and “non-colors” - black, gray, white. He also highlighted the concepts of “opposition of horizontal and vertical”, “opposition of dimensions”. This was a great theoretical work of the artist.
Over the next decade and a half, Mondrian worked diligently, creating more than seventy paintings. The subjects in the paintings are conveyed using stripes, usually dark. They limit the “fields” on the canvases that indicate an emotion or state. Very good ones period, these are: “Composition with red, yellow and blue”, “Composition in white and black” or “Composition 1 with black lines”. In 1932, the artist depicted on canvas two parallel lines, which cross the entire canvas on top of the drawing. An example of this: “Composition B with gray and yellow.”
In the early thirties, a painting appeared that became key in this period of the artist Piet Mondrian’s work. This is "Composition with Yellow Lines". The peculiarity of this painting is that it has four wide stripes of different colors, without interruption, intersecting a rhombus - the key figure on the canvas. From then on, Piet Mondrian began to combine all the figures available to him with lines of different colors. The artist will be engaged in this combination for the next ten years.
After Mondrian completed several series of paintings with squares, a series of paintings with “lattices” began - these are paintings with very densely intersecting lines, located both vertically and horizontally. For example, "Composition II with red and blue."
Moving to the USA and death
In 1938, in September, the artist Piet Mondrian left for England, London. There he works on “Trafalgar Square” - this is a very large canvas, with a combination of figures, stripes and colors, and also writes “Place de la Concorde”. With the beginning of the bombing of London by fascist planes, the artist left for America, where he continued to work on his paintings. He is received very warmly, and he arranges several shows of his work for connoisseurs in New York. Newspapers dubbed Mondrian "one of the greatest refugees from Europe." Also, while in the States, the artist makes changes to his paintings - he begins to add colored lines to the “grids” on top of the main plot of the canvas.
Among the major films of this period are: "Broadway Boogie-Woogie" and "Boogie-Woogie Victory." There, in the USA, during the war, the first biography was published: “The Artist Mondrian,” as well as the first collection of essays by the artist.
On February 1, 1944, the artist died, having contracted pneumonia the day before. He was buried in New York, at the Cypress Hills Cemetery.
Followers
The Dutch artist influenced all twentieth-century painting. Together with Malevich and Kandinsky, he is one of the three artists who laid the foundation for abstract art.
Mondrian's style was considered by many to be a classic abstract painting and took it as a standard. Mondrian's paintings are widely used even now - in decor, in interior elements, in the design of anything. The artist has always had many followers and admirers, because he cannot help but be attracted by a person like Piet Mondrian, whose paintings and biography became a reflection of the “turn of the century” and the new, twentieth, very bright century.
Famous paintings
"Boogie Woogie on Broadway."
This painting was painted in 1943, already in the USA, very shortly before the artist’s death. She became one of the most famous works final period creative activity Mondrian. The dimensions of this painting are 127 x 127 cm, the material used is canvas, painted in oil and enamel. Now the canvas is exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, which is located in New York.
“View of the dunes with the beach and pier” (see photo below).
The painting was created in 1909, when Mondrian was just beginning his brilliant career in the field of an artist. It is written on cardboard using oil and pencils. On this moment The canvas is exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Memory of the artist
The name Piet Mondrian becomes very famous almost immediately after his death. Posthumous exhibitions of the artist took place: in 1945 - at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in 1946 - at the City Museum in Amsterdam, in 1947 - at Art Museum in Basel and only in 1969 in Paris - in the Orangerie Museum.
Today, most of the artist’s works are kept in the Municipal Museum in The Hague, the City Museum in Amsterdam, and also in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the nineties of the 20th century, paintings by Piet Mondrian were brought to Russia, and largest cities exhibitions were held: "Piet Mondrian. Abstractionism." Paintings with titles were shown in 1996: in the Hermitage and in the Museum fine arts them. Alexandra Pushkina.
Here are some of them:
- One of the programming languages (Piet) is named after the artist Mondrian. The reason for this is that programs written in this language resemble an abstraction in appearance.
- In St. Petersburg, one of the buildings was painted in the style of one of Piet Mondrian’s paintings, namely Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black. In 2013, the building was demolished and no more similar experiments were carried out.
- Mondrian's work is featured in a British TV series called Virtuosi. There's a group of thieves stealing from art gallery one of Mondrian’s paintings, and then replaces it with a fake, passing it off as a stranger famous painting"early Mondrian". In reality, such a picture as presented in the series never existed.
- In Khimki near Moscow, in the “City of Embankments”, everything pedestrian crossings made in the style of Mondrian.
- At the Rumyantsevo metro station of the Moscow Metro, the walls of the station are painted in the style of Mondrian.
Finally
The hero of this article is the artist Mondrian, short biography which was presented above. His paintings, far from canonized classicism, continue to excite consciousness and amaze the imagination. Working at the junction of two eras, the master showed that new times always require a new way of expression.
Piet Mondrian Self-Portrai 1900
Dutch artist who, simultaneously with Kandinsky and Malevich, laid the foundation for abstract painting. His paintings, which are combinations of rectangles and lines, are examples of the most rigorous, uncompromising geometric abstraction in modern painting.
Pete was born into a family with strict Calvinist beliefs. After leaving his father's house, Pete goes to study art in Amsterdam, where in 1892–1894 he attends the Amsterdam Academy of Arts and lives in the atmosphere of the enlightened and educated elite.
Mondrian's first works were painted in a realistic style. He started as an art teacher in primary school, early works- landscapes of Holland in the spirit of impressionism.
Piet Mondrian Pollard Willows on the Gein. 1902-04
Piet Mondrian On the Lappenbrink. 1899
Piet Mondrian spent a decade and a half painting traditional realistic landscapes, capturing plains and clouds, windmills, canals and everything else that is well known to every museum visitor from countless paintings by Dutch landscape painters over many centuries.
In May 1909, Mondrian joined the Dutch branch of the Theosophical Society.
Piet Mondrian Avond (Evening). Red Tree. 1908
Piet Mondrian Passionflower 1908 Gemeentemuseum, Hague
Piet Mondrian Windmill in Sunlight 1908
Piet Mondrian Amaryllis. 1910
Piet Mondrian Church near Domburg. 1910-11
In 1910, Mondrian made his first trip to Paris, where he became acquainted with the work of the avant-garde.
In the autumn of 1911, at an exhibition of Cubists in Amsterdam, he became acquainted with the work of Picasso and Braque, and it had a great influence on the formation of the young artist.
At the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe, the first, still naive, but full of strength avant-garde movements were already making themselves known with might and main. In Holland, one might not have noticed the ongoing artistic revolution, but artist friends advised Mondrian not to linger in his quiet country, but to go to Paris, the then capital of art and thought.
In the spring of 1912, Mondrian moved to Paris and began working in the manner of “high cubism.”
Piet Mondrian. Still Life with Gingerpot I, 1911
He refuses in his paintings the slightest hints of plot, atmosphere, modeling and spatial depth and gradually consciously limited means of expression. In 1914, the first completely non-objective canvases of the forty-two-year-old artist appeared.
In the same year, the artist returned to Holland to his father, who was dying, and remained in his homeland throughout the First World War.
At the end of 1915, Mondrian's non-objective experiments found a response among young artists Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) and Bart van der Leck, the architect Oud, as well as the Russian constructivist El Lissitzky (1890-1947), who tried to find a synthesis of painting with modern architecture.
Mondrian became close to van Doesburg and together with him founded the Style movement (De Stijl) in 1917, which also included Oud, Rietveld and van Eesteren.
They also created and edited an art magazine of the same name. Mondrian and his like-minded people considered themselves classics of the twentieth century and came up with the name “neoplasticism” for their movement. Mondrian writes manifestos proclaiming the need for a strictly geometric order in art.
During these years, the artist built compositions based on a freely constructed spatial grid that filled the canvas. At the same time, for some reason Mondrian painted his next self-portrait in a realistic manner.
Piet Mondrian. Self-Portrait 1918
In 1919, the artist again left for Paris, where he lived until 1938.
By 1920, Mondrian's style was fully formed. The artist meticulously and consistently developed the non-figurative direction of painting. During the last thirty, most fruitful years of his life, he performed sacred acts on canvases, painted them into rectangles and squares and painted the resulting geometric fields either with intense bright colors or with lightweight and transparent shades of white, gray, beige or bluish. I think a couple of paintings will be enough to imagine the abstract work of the artist.
Piet Mondrian Composition in Color A. 1917
Piet Mondrian Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black. 1921
Mondrian's perseverance and consistency are rewarded with exhibitions, which in the 20s make him famous in France, Holland and around the world.
In 1921, an exhibition of Mondrian took place in Paris, which received great resonance, and in 1926 - an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
His paintings are eagerly bought by American collectors and exhibited in American museums.
In 1939, Mondrian moved to England, and in 1940 to New York.
Having moved from Europe, engulfed in war and terror Nazi occupation, to a calm and prosperous America, Mondrian abandoned the color black and avoided everything sharp and contrasting. New York skyscrapers and jazz found their response in the rectangular structures of neoplasticism.
Piet Mondrian New York City, 3. 1941
In one of the artist’s last works, “Boogie-Woogie on Broadway” (New York, Museum of Modern Art), a tendency appeared to move away from the strict classical principles of the avant-garde. In this work, small squares are dotted across a grid of lines, giving the entire composition a new syncopic complexity and playful rhythm.
Piet Mondrian Broadway Boogie-Woogie. 1942-43
Exactly a year before his death (1943), the artist, with the help of his American admirers, exhibited his paintings at his large personal exhibition in New York.
Mondrian died in New York on February 1, 1944 from pneumonia.
The design of Mondrian's New York studio, in which he worked for only a few months, became, as it were, last job masters, these “Murals” were shown at exhibitions in New York, London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Berlin.
Wikipedia materials used, articles Doctor of Art History Alexander Yakimovich, sites
Many articles and many words have been said about how art and design relate. Should design be considered art or not? And yet, most design theorists agreed that - yes, count!
There is even such a direction as art design. Items related to it are low-functional and controversial, but as a rule, they quickly become collectibles and rapidly increase in price.
And, of course, great artists have always inspired designers to create a variety of design objects.
Piet Mondrian is certainly one of the brightest artists 20th century, one of the founders of abstract art and theorists of new art influenced design like no other.
His perfect geometric abstractions fit perfectly on the surface of any objects, which instantly rise from a boring utilitarian object to the heights of an art object, as well as an object of admiration and lust.
Well, for example, girls... How do you like these dresses from Yves Saint Laurent? Collection "Mondrian", 1965 
Isn’t it true, they are quite relevant today, the price for the few remaining originals is off the charts!
And these are the creations of modern fashion designers...
In 1926, Mondrian sketched the interior of a room of the future as he imagined it. 25 years later, New York gallery The Pace brought the artist's vision to life, creating this room in the original color scheme artist.
Sketch... 
Embodiment... 
However, if we start from the very beginning, then in the beginning the chair was one of the first who warmly accepted the ideas of neoplasticism (a drop of “-isms”) and the De Stijl group, which was founded by M., became Gerrit Rietveld, who in 1917 created the famous “red and blue chair”, which later became an icon of constructivism.
He is also the author of the Schröder House in Utrecht, which can be seen in this cartoon and also resembles a three-dimensional painting by Mondrian.
By the way, in St. Petersburg, on the Moika (this is a river) for a long time there was a box house painted in the style of Mondrian, but it has now been demolished.
And this chair “The Charles” for Moooi by my favorite Marcel Wanders, also, by the way, Dutch, the chair is old, but the upholstery, a dedication to Mondrian, is completely fresh, if I’m not mistaken, it was just presented at the Milan Salon.
Will the borscht prepared in this kitchen be special - that's the question?
And, if you are an esthete, then maybe it will be more pleasant for you to carry out water procedures in such a bathroom? And, to work in such an office?
If you are in dire need of art in the interior of your home or office - masking tape and a few cans of paint - and a couple of hours of work. And now, you are the owner of a Mondrian-style wall. Effective and inexpensive!
Pop culture also did not remain without the influence of the artist...
How do you like the Mondrian and the Simpsons wine? Or a piece of art cupcake? It’s impossible not to Instagram..) I even found a can of Coca-Cola “a la Mondrian”.
Furniture, bags, pillows, posters, games for children and even (!!!) manicures in the style of Mondrian painting continue to triumphantly march around the world.
Contrasting primary colors, which are characteristic of M.’s style, are always dramatic, which means they cannot but evoke emotions. And everything that provokes strong emotions is extremely in demand today, because we are fed up and bored.
So, dear designers! If you feel a crisis of ideas, turn to the eternal - to art, and you will find happiness and inspiration!
Another portion of Dutch art - old and new
“There is nothing more concrete than line, color, plane,” these words of Piet Mondrian fully describe last period his creativity. “Geometric” paintings, the space of which is filled with ideal squares and rectangles of pure colors, are the apogee of the life and work of the Dutch artist. One of the founders of abstract art, Mondrian evolved in his work along with the 20th century: from impressionist “spots of light” through sharp corners he came to cubism own style already at the very end of life, continuing to create until the very last minute.
On Saturday at Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val, as part of the Russia-Holland cross-cultural year, the exhibition "Piet Mondrian. The Path to Abstraction" opens, which will present about 40 works by the artist from the collection of the Municipal Museum of The Hague, where largest meeting his works. The exhibition, which will last until November 24, promises to become one of the most important cultural events of this fall and the object of close attention of city residents. Before joining the checkout line, the Weekend project invites readers to trace the evolution of Mondrian's work through the example of five of his iconic works.
"Mill in sunlight"(Mill in Sunlight). 1908
Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian. "Mill in the Sunlight" 1908
The work, which is now in the collection of the Municipal Museum of The Hague, can be considered one of the most striking illustrations early period Mondrian's creativity and his short-term passion for impressionism. In this picture, the conflict in the artist’s work is already clearly visible; bright pigments, the influence of Fauvism and Van Gogh’s works seem to be opposed to the traditional Dutch motif, so often found in the works of his predecessors and contemporaries keen on the classics. The yellow and blue background contrasts with the red and blue mill, painted with deliberately rough strokes. Even in this work one can see a certain schematic and geometric composition, which the artist would come to much later. It will not be possible to see this particular work of the artist at an exhibition in Moscow, but other works of this period will be presented at the Tretyakov Gallery.
Triptych "Evolution". 1911
Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian. Triptych "Evolution". 1911
From the mid-1900s, Mondrian became interested in symbolism and the theosophical movements of Rudolf Steiner and Helena Blavatsky. The influence of this passion is visible, for example, in the work “Piety” from 1908, which can be seen at the exhibition. Muscovites will not see this time, unfortunately, the most important work this period - the triptych "Evolution". A landmark work by the artist, in which “theosophical symbolism is combined with the rigidity of lines.” The painting shows "three stages of knowledge", which reflects religious views and moral principles Mondrian in that period.
"The Gray Tree". 1912
Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian. "Gray Tree" 1912
In 1911, Mondrian went to Paris, where he lived until July 1914. This is the period of his passion for cubism, the works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. During this period he gives preference graphic works, leaving color of secondary importance in defiance of the coloristic cubism of Fernand Léger and Robert Delaunay. During this period, Mondrian gradually abandoned the three-dimensionality of the image, leaving only lines on the plane of the canvas. At the same time, the artist does not abandon his long-standing series of variations of the tree motif; some of these works can also be seen at the exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery. In the work of 1912 "Gray Tree" you can already see how it is in place curved lines horizontals and verticals come, still interrupted by oblique lines, which Mondrian would abandon only in 1914. This motif - the relationship between the vertical (male) and horizontal (female) - appeared in his work a little earlier, but in the future the artist continued to search for the ideal harmony between these two principles in his works.
"Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black." 1921
provided by the Public Relations Department of the State Tretyakov Gallery
Piet Mondrian. "Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black." 1921
The artist's most recognizable works are his late abstract works, the titles of which differ mainly in numbering. His “geometric” painting - neoplasticism, as the author himself called his painting system - largely revolutionized the ideas of his contemporaries and descendants about art. His most famous work in this direction is “Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black,” written in 1921. It is this work that is remembered first when people talk about the “Mondrian style”, and it can be seen at an exhibition in Moscow. In the 1960s, Yves Saint Laurent, inspired by the artist’s style (and “Composition” of 1921 in particular), created a whole series of laconic dresses with abstract geometric patterns, which have now become one of the recognizable symbols of the fashion house.
"Victory Boogie Woogie" 1942-1944
Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian. "Boogie Woogie Victory" 1942-1944
Mondrian completed this painting in 1943, shortly after he moved to New York (in 1938 he fled to America from fascism-ridden Europe). Art critics call this work the culmination of the artist’s style and the principles of neoplasticism. Unlike early abstract works, the squares here are smaller and brighter, there is not a single black spot, and the cells of pure color only set off the white space of the canvas. This work captures the bustling sights and sounds of New York City in the 1940s. home distinctive feature The painting is diamond-shaped, the canvas is rotated 45 degrees. The painting is now in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in The Hague. This is the last work the artist worked on before being admitted to the hospital. Mondrian died of pneumonia on February 1, 1944 and was buried in Brooklyn.
You can learn more about the artist’s work at the lecture “Piet Mondrian: Pioneer of Abstract Painting,” which will be given by Brigitte Leal, an expert on the artist’s paintings, head of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
