The Nazis considered the work of this Dutch artist degenerate. He was forced to flee to London, and then to New York. However, Pete Mondrian managed to conquer the whole world with his famous geometric abstract paintings and influence the further development of art.
A Brief Biography of Pete Mondrian
One of the founders of abstract art, artist Pete Mondrian, was born on March 7, 1872 in the city of Amersfoort, Utrecht province in the Netherlands (Amersfoort, Netherlands). Now Mondrian is considered the most famous native of this small town.
Full name is Peter Cornelius Mondrian. The boy showed an early love for drawing, and his father supported his son's passion. At an early stage, he and his uncle, a landscape painter, Fritz Mondrian, engaged in the artistic education of the child.
At the age of 20, Peter began his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of Amsterdam (1892-1897). In addition to the capital of the Netherlands, the important stages of his life and work are connected twice with Paris: 1911-1914 and 1919-1938, and then London: 1938-1940. Recent years have passed in New York: 1940-1944.
In the first period of his work, Mondrian painted landscapes, depicting the nature of the Netherlands on his canvases. At the same time, he tirelessly searched for new things, dreamed of something else - progressive art for the modern world, and constantly experimented. At different times of his formation as an artist, he was influenced by impressionism, Van Gogh's creativity, and Picasso's cubism. Mondrian was fascinated by the theosophical teachings of Helena Blavatsky. Gradually, his paintings became original in line, color, rhythm. He stubbornly walked his own way in art and, in the end, forever moved away from naturalistic, plot and figurative painting.
As a result, Pete Mondrian developed his own abstract geometric style - neoplasticism. He filled the space of the canvas with compositions consisting of flat, different-sized cells obtained by crossing at right angles of straight horizontal and vertical lines. He painted over the area of the planes formed by the lines with only three primary colors of the spectrum - yellow, red, and blue.
In 1917-1932 a group of painters and architects united in the community "De Stijl" - "Style". One of its founders is Pete Mondrian. In the journal of the same name, Mondrian set forth his views on art and substantiated the theory of neoplasticism.
In 1938, the Nazis came to power. Mondrian fled from Paris to London because his art was recognized as degenerate by them. In 1940 he moved even further - to New York. There in 1942 he held his personal exhibition, the only one in life.
He was impressed by the energetic metropolis with its hectic life, jazz and boogie-woogie dance. This passion was manifested in his works. In 1943, he painted the Broadway Boogie Woogie. The location of the lines and small cells on the canvas resembles the street map of the New York Manhattan area.
The artist did not complete his last masterpiece - the painting “The Victory of Boogie Woogie”. On February 1, 1944, he died of pneumonia.
The personal life of Pete Mondrean went beyond the family. He had no children and wife.
The work of Pete Mondrian, the Moscow metro, the programming language of his name and other interesting stories
The style developed by Mondrian influenced the development of fine art in general and the work of many artists. Such directions as op-art and minimalism with their origins go back to neoplasticism. Mondrian’s achievements are reflected in architecture, advertising and printing, interior decoration, furniture design, fashion and even utilitarian items.
In the 1930s, the designer of the Parisian fashion house Hermes, Lola Prusak, introduced a line of leather suitcases and bags decorated with square blocks of "Mondrian" colors: red, blue and yellow.
In September 1965, the famous French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent created the Mondrian collection from knitted mini dresses with a trapeze silhouette from fabric with prints from fragments of the artist’s paintings. The project was presented in French Vogue and in many other fashion magazines. Models of dresses immediately gained popularity and were mass produced in cheap copies.
The artist’s art, which is quite unexpected, was not alien to computer scientists. David Morgan-Mar invented a programming language whose code looks like an abstract drawing similar to the "gratings" of Pete Mondrian's paintings. The programmer called this language the name of the artist - Piet.
With the works of Mondrian unpleasant stories occurred. January 9, 2012 from the National Art Gallery of Athens was stolen his work "Mill", written in 1905.
Pete Mondrian's brushes belong to one of the 100 most expensive paintings in the world sold at Christie's auction - “Composition No. III. Red, Blue, Yellow and Black, ” created in 1929. It was sold in 2015 for $ 50.565 million.
An interesting example of the use of Mondrian motives is in our capital. In January 2016, the Rumyantsevo station was opened on the red metro line in New Moscow, in the interiors of which stained-glass windows with elements of abstract paintings by Mondrian were used.
