Piet Mondrian

In the early 1900s, the artist had an artistic style close to symbolism. In 1907, Mondrian realised Red Cloud, which was an essential and significant artwork of his emerging career. The canvas pictured an extremely simplified marine landscape whose colours had a symbolic value. Next year, the artist met Jan Toorop, who was main painter of Holland symbolism.

As Mondrian was always looking for a more spiritual painting, in 1909, he joined the Theosophical Society, which put forward the idea of a cosmic order of the world, beyond appearances and the visible.

In 1911, Mondrian discovered Braque's cubist artworks in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He felt something about it so he decided to take the path of cubism. That same year, the painter settled in Paris. He wanted to develop the analytic cubism so he became one of the leader and pioneer of abstract art by creating a new picture language, between 1913 and 1914.

In 1915, he came back to his home country and aimed to push the cubist boundaries in order achieve a purer abstraction. During this year, he did not finish any paintings, even though tried many times, except for his canvas C_omposition 10_.

When he came back to Paris in 1919, Mondrian published many writings in the Holland journal De Stijl, whose his essay called Natural reality and abstract reality in which he explained the material nature must be set aside in favor of its essence.He wanted to express himself only with straight lines and clearly defined primary colors.Then, from 1940, he only worked with the red, yellow and blue colors, and geometrically structured his artworks. According to his theosophical believes, Mondrian said angle right had an universal meaning.When the World War II flared, Mondrian settled first in London, United Kingdom, and then moved to New York City, United States, in 1940. Once he was on American soil, the painter was quickly integrated to the artistic world. As he enjoyed jazz, he enthusiastically adopted the boogie-woogie and found the inspiration from it to realize several paintings such as Broadway Boogie-Woogie or New York City. He made friends with Max Ernst, he was requested for various exhibitions juries, and also integrated the "American Abstract Artists" group.Piet Mondrian died in February 1944, in New York City, United States.

Text courtesy Helene Bailly Gallery.