Mondrian and the Neo-plasticist Utopia
Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was one of the pioneers of abstract art in the twentieth century. His was a plastic art, in which every curve, spatial illusion, every affect of the brush - anything that recalled the techniques of Impressionism - was rejected. His painting pursued relationship, the necessarily two-dimensional meeting of line and line in a ninety degree angle, though he imbued this planar relationship with an asymmetric vitality.
Mondrian's work shows a progression from naturalism in his early years, to cubism, which he encountered in Paris in 1911, and finally, this unique style of neoplastic painting containing no association with objective reality. His work influenced many younger artists, including Fernand Léger and Willi Baumeister. This lively text discusses the progression of Mondrians career, and his avant-garde artistic beliefs as seen through his writings and his associations with other artists and intellectuals.