April 3, 2014

Piet Mondrian/ De Stijl
The “Logical Consequences of Cubism”

Piet Mondrian

Landzicht Farm Under Unclouded Blue Sky (1905)
-placid water—stable image
-reflection of trees on a slow moving river
-inhibits the illusion of death because of symmentry
-charge the realistic landscape
Geinrust Farm in the Mist (1906-07)

Avond (Evening); Red Tree (1908)
-symbolist color influences of Van Gogh
-more extreme, pure colors—less and less naturalistic
-starts to focus on single objects that are more static and more frontal
-putting pressure on the motif of the tree

View from the Dunes with Deach and Piers
-starts to explore the methods of Seurat
- Seurat’s atomization of motif and symbol
-futile to depict nature as it is
-encounter of the verticality of the plane
-osilating between surface and depth
-structurally on the left and chromatically to the right

Lighthouse in West Kappele (1909)

Molen (mill); Red Mill at Domburg

Evolution 1910-11
-esoteric iconology
-relationship between spirituality and abstract form
-mondrian is thinking about how you can make paiting universal
-discovers Cezzanian impact on cubism—turns around his painting and makes him pick up more abstract aspects

Still Life with Gingerpot (1911)
-still much naturalism
-can still comprehend many objects that are depicted illusionistically
-creates metrix of lines

Still Life with Gingerpot II (1912)
-linear squaring and organization of all of the elements in the field
-the depicted sercice to the little service—becomes a lot more flat
-Moves object closer to the picture plane

Gray Tree 1911
-first proto-cubist paintings—shows a new approach that will reach a culmination within a year
-1912- moves to Paris
-where we can first see cubism directly and see its logic
-changes the structure of painting

Bloeiende Appelboom
-realizes they are a bit illusionistic as well
-look at the background as much as the foreground
-in order to progress you must manifest a grid
-getting a grasp of the grid

Tableau No. 2; Composition No. VII
-drops out the colors—comes back to greys and no more chromoatic variations
-cubist palette
-developing a field under analytic cubism
-subordination of color
-unfocused edge
Tableau No. 1: Composition No. XIII
-based on architecture

once Mondrian realized what he could do with cubism, he said that the cubists didn’t realize what they could do with their new form

-see him moving beyond the limits of cubism
-eliminates cubist overt subject matter
-no more illusionistic depth

Tableau No. 3; composition in oval (1914)
-simply cuts off edges and deals with oval paintings
-once he transcends cubism, he reintroduces color
Composition in Oval with Color Planes (1914)
-project of abstraction is taking shape but is having problems creating tension within the structure of the field
-doesn’t have the entire painting under control

in 1914, WWI breaks out and Mondrian visits the Netherlands to visit his family and he now is stuck there—he has time to develop without outside Parisian influences

evolution of the Church at Domburg (1909) – playing with the spatial field in the most reduced terms as possible

Pier and Ocean I (1914) ---- Ocean IV (1914)
-last residual part of ovular paintings
-horizontals that abstract the broken surface of the ocean (choppy surface)—in Pier and Ocean, the sky is reflected in the water
-grid opens up with this series
-begins to form plus and minus signs
-generalizing his source in nature – translating motif into symbolic structure
-dualism: the world could be reduced to the vertical and the horizontal
-the vertical: masculine and energetic
-the horizontal: passive, feminine, and materialist
-became extremely pure to get the field of representation
-evoke a flickering service of the water—spiritual ideal of nature
-elementarization as true vision or reality
-both generate and undo operations

Composition 10 in Black and White; Pier and Ocean (1915)--- Composition in Line (1916)
-abstraction can be an object in its own right
-abstraction can give a purer form of reality
-abstractions that aren’t an analysis down from a more complex motif but that are built up
-units of small black rectangles of varying sizes
-crucial shift in Mondrian’s work
-adds back the color but continues to reduce that

pure plasticism asserts presence—plastic expression (plastic means physical and spatial)
Composition with Color Planes 3 (1917)--- Composition in Color B (1917)
-sometimes rectangles touch and sometimes they don’t
-aimed to create movement even though he attempted to keep the shapes parallel
-movement and dynamism refers to some tricks of painting that make it feel like part of the world still
-back lines and color planes are not integrated but instead, float in space
-next key transitional moment

Composition Color Planes and Gray Lines 1 (1918)--- Composition with Grids 8; Checkerboard with Dark Colors (1919)
-tried to keep it so that one color didn’t dominate
-combines the black bars with the color planes in the space of the painting
-doesn’t overlap the color planes anymore
-no spatial depth
-first mature painting on the left—somehow cubism transforms into centrifugal
-painting isn’t like imitating anything—it’s its own right
-balance and counter balance
-divides the field of painting into a grid
-1918—neo-plasticism transcends cubism to him
-abstract principle to which neo-platicism paintings are the theory
-beelding
-1918 text—the new painting—Mondrian defines his new spatial concept into a dialectic which is resolved on this bigger ground idea
-visual reality can only be expressed by abstract plastics

returns to Paris in 1919 composition A; composition with black, red, gray (1920)—Compostioon with large blue plane, red black tallow and gray (1921)
-tries to create in a non-hiericahial hole where each object is given its own strength but come together -does this inside the surface of the painting
-first principles of neo-plasticism
-equivalent opposities
-mysitcal or higher unity within the universe
-still doesn’t see it as pure enough
-painting is a made thing in the world—seen as in and of itself
-for the next 20 years, he keeps refining his process

Tableau no IV --- Compistion IV Fox Trot A: Lozenge Composition
-develops heavy black lines
-this operates along and with the planes of colors
-link the black bars to a mathematical purity
-wanted to rule out any indeterminacy of color

-uses doube lines and creates a rhythm of form

Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43)
-pace of new york from above is much different
-the regularity of a beat could set up improvisations

Victory Boogie Woogie (1942-44)
-only thing you can do to have a diagonal for the work is to turn the work on its side – no diagonals inside the canvas
-gets rid of distinction of color and line

De Stijl Group
-dada artists in it as well
-intial dutch founders of the group – Mondrian included

De Stijl im other forms—rietveld – red and blue chair
---- Schroder house