piet mondrian Dutch, 187 2–1944
The eleven works by Piet Mondrian in the Museum’s collection illustrate his transformation from post-impressionist landscape painter to austere
Windmill
abstractionist. In Farm Near Duivendrecht, in the Evening and Windmill, Mondrian
c. 1917
describes the dramatic lighting of the flat Dutch countryside with a sen-
Oil on canvas
suous, painterly touch. In Apple Tree, Pointillist Version, he expresses a grow-
39M × 37M in. ( 100.3 × 95.3 cm) Gift of Mrs. Eugene McDermott in honor of Mr. and Mrs. James H. Clark, 1989.142
ing interest in the vocabulary of cubism and the underlying structures of nature. His assertive network of linear forms breaks the natural motif into an organic grid. By the time Mondrian painted Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray (page 246), this grid had become a precise yet flexible armature for each new composition. During the final phase of Mondrian’s career, he moved to New York as he fled the chaos of war. In paintings from this period, such as Place de la Concorde (page 247), he gradually incorporated color directly into the grid, along with a new, syncopated rhythm inspired by jazz music and the urban fabric of the twentiethcentury city.
modern
3121-04 DMA handbook Modern-Contemporary [BW 10-11].indd 245
245
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