(Pieter Mondriaan) (1872-1944) Dutch painter. A pioneer of abstract art, he lived in Paris 1919–38, then in London, and from 1940 in New York. He was a founder member of the De Stijl movement and chief exponent of Neo-Plasticism, a rigorous abstract style based on the use of simple geometric forms and pure colors. He typically created a framework using vertical and horizontal lines, and filled the rectangles with primary colors, mid-gray, or black, others being left white. His Composition in Red, Yellow and Blue 1920 (Stedelijk, Amsterdam) is typical.
In Paris from 1911 Mondrian was inspired by Cubism. He returned to the Netherlands during World War I, where he executed a series of still lifes and landscapes to refine his ideas, ultimately developing a pure abstract style. His esthetic theories were published in the journal De Stijl from 1917, in Neoplasticism 1920, and in the essay “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art” 1937. From the New York period his Broadway Boogie-Woogie 1942–43 (Museum of Modern Art, New York) reflects a late preoccupation with jazz rhythms. + prikaži više