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World of Art
Mondrian
art book
- GenresArt
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1968
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 17, 2025
To my great surprise I rather enjoyed this book.
In the first place, the transition from Mondriaan to Mondrian -- that is, the transition from pale and rather unskillful Dutch neorealism to the most austere of abstract painting -- is a magnificent sight to behold. Mondrian drew trees and the sea over and over, every time more abstracted: He began first by drawing out from these objects whip-like curves, then broke these curves into jagged lines; the lines breaking apart into their component pieces; then the diagonals flattening into short, thin horizontals and verticals meeting at right angles, so that the whole canvas is covered by crossing line segments; the crosses thickening, homogenizing then breaking apart; the introduction of colored rectangles adjoining the crosses; the crosses lengthening to form lines stretching across the canvas and the rectangles coming together in a patchwork on the field; finally a hardening and compactification of these motifs into the distinctive Mondrian squares within a larger rhomboid. Long before this process ended Mondrian ceased naming his compositions after the objects they were meant to represent -- or rather his compositions ceased to be representational. His output for the next 25 years was nothing but a series of works entitled "Composition." But the transitional works are magnificent, especially seen together. They are the very best of lyrical geometric expressionism and the envy of all Concrete poets.
After 1921 Mondrian produced nothing but paintings in this austere style: black vertical and horizontal lines bounding grey squares and rectangles, sparsely colored in red, blue, and yellow. Some of these compositions have a genuine elegance. Others are interesting in a different way: I found myself angry after a prolonged staring match with "Composition in a Square, 1926." But by far the most interesting aspect again of this period is the development of Mondrian's style, even within these bounds. The text in this book is certainly no help in seeing it, but it's there.
1920-25 is unambiguously transitional because of biographical facts: this is the period in which he turned his style into dogma. In his pictures he is moving toward compositions dominated by a single square or rectangle. 1930-40 is also transitional. In the first phase, he is experimenting with line: first with compositions so austere as to consist of nothing but two black lines on a grey field. Then he tries groups (at first just pairs) of thin lines close together, cutting out thin rectangles. He even does colored lines. After '35 things are starting to go off the rails: little colored squares are appearing, we're zooming out, etc.. In his last years (after '40) the compositions explode into tiny colored squares, culminating in the spectacular Boogie Woogie series -- more on that later. That leaves 25-30. Something is happening here. I cannot explain it rationally. But I can feel it. Between the compositions something is changing. Mondrian is always moving.
I feel compelled to say that Mondrian's development is not the only interesting thing about his work. I was, as I say, greatly surprised to find myself really liking some of the individual paintings in this book. As with Concrete poetry the challenge is to do something powerful even within such a formally restrictive environment; the worst case scenario is to wind up making something that would be nice on an airport wall. But consider "Composition with Blue, 1937." See how it's uncomfortably tight on the right side? See how the top and left edges seem to continue on? See how funny the blue thing is, how wonky? This is too unsteady to be corporate. Or how about "Compositions I and II with Black Lines, 1930." What a pair these make! But even one of them is too imposing, too strong to be a nothing.
And most of all, his final paintings are splendid. I mean "New York I" IS New York. "Broadway Boogie Woogie" really makes you want to walk down a neon street. "Victory Boogie Woogie" -- formally a combination of neoplastic dogma and "Composition No. 9, 1913 (Scaffolding)" -- I'll bet captures just what VE day was like. These are masterpieces and they are FUN.
---
Now for the bad. First of all Mondrian seems like kind of an idiot, and a lot of this stuff is pure silliness. We've got one guy "renounc[ing] the dogma of the 'horizontal-vertical' in favor of the diagonal." We have Mondrian reacting to the news of a contemporary using curves in his art by "reply[ing], with a grimace of bitter disaprovel, 'I might have known.'" We've got some truly ridiculous and incomprehensible manifestos. For goodness's sake the man drew squares for 30 years straight and stopped looking at trees and grass because he wouldn't look at anything that wasn't a primary color!
Frank Elgar on the other hand is totally convinced: "Mondrian was a sensitive, contemplative man, capable of scaling the heights of poetry." "Mondrian, in his painting, has condensed a seething mass of forces, compressed an accumulation of energy, and mastered perfectly the occult powers of the universe." "[Mondrian was] one of the noblest minds that the world of art has ever known."
Aside from being fart-sniffing to a comical degree, Elgar's text is repetitious, boring, badly keyed to the images, pretentious in its references to Plotinus and other things Elgar clearly knows nothing about, and just generally of low quality. Also, Elgar's... rationalism (I guess?) is interfering with his humanity: "It seems unfortunate," Elgar writes of Mondrian's late work "that he [i.e. Mondrian] did not resist the temptation to transmit to his ill-named neo-plasticism the joys so amply provided by American life." Heaven forfend but an artist communicate joy in his work or deviate from his self imposed-dogma! He does make one rather good observation though: that 'the object' seems bound to disappear, even in Mondrian's early work.
---
Anyway I found this in G David's in Cambridge & it was a bargain & I have yet to be let down by a T&H book. Just wish the text wasn't so French, yeugh
In the first place, the transition from Mondriaan to Mondrian -- that is, the transition from pale and rather unskillful Dutch neorealism to the most austere of abstract painting -- is a magnificent sight to behold. Mondrian drew trees and the sea over and over, every time more abstracted: He began first by drawing out from these objects whip-like curves, then broke these curves into jagged lines; the lines breaking apart into their component pieces; then the diagonals flattening into short, thin horizontals and verticals meeting at right angles, so that the whole canvas is covered by crossing line segments; the crosses thickening, homogenizing then breaking apart; the introduction of colored rectangles adjoining the crosses; the crosses lengthening to form lines stretching across the canvas and the rectangles coming together in a patchwork on the field; finally a hardening and compactification of these motifs into the distinctive Mondrian squares within a larger rhomboid. Long before this process ended Mondrian ceased naming his compositions after the objects they were meant to represent -- or rather his compositions ceased to be representational. His output for the next 25 years was nothing but a series of works entitled "Composition." But the transitional works are magnificent, especially seen together. They are the very best of lyrical geometric expressionism and the envy of all Concrete poets.
After 1921 Mondrian produced nothing but paintings in this austere style: black vertical and horizontal lines bounding grey squares and rectangles, sparsely colored in red, blue, and yellow. Some of these compositions have a genuine elegance. Others are interesting in a different way: I found myself angry after a prolonged staring match with "Composition in a Square, 1926." But by far the most interesting aspect again of this period is the development of Mondrian's style, even within these bounds. The text in this book is certainly no help in seeing it, but it's there.
1920-25 is unambiguously transitional because of biographical facts: this is the period in which he turned his style into dogma. In his pictures he is moving toward compositions dominated by a single square or rectangle. 1930-40 is also transitional. In the first phase, he is experimenting with line: first with compositions so austere as to consist of nothing but two black lines on a grey field. Then he tries groups (at first just pairs) of thin lines close together, cutting out thin rectangles. He even does colored lines. After '35 things are starting to go off the rails: little colored squares are appearing, we're zooming out, etc.. In his last years (after '40) the compositions explode into tiny colored squares, culminating in the spectacular Boogie Woogie series -- more on that later. That leaves 25-30. Something is happening here. I cannot explain it rationally. But I can feel it. Between the compositions something is changing. Mondrian is always moving.
I feel compelled to say that Mondrian's development is not the only interesting thing about his work. I was, as I say, greatly surprised to find myself really liking some of the individual paintings in this book. As with Concrete poetry the challenge is to do something powerful even within such a formally restrictive environment; the worst case scenario is to wind up making something that would be nice on an airport wall. But consider "Composition with Blue, 1937." See how it's uncomfortably tight on the right side? See how the top and left edges seem to continue on? See how funny the blue thing is, how wonky? This is too unsteady to be corporate. Or how about "Compositions I and II with Black Lines, 1930." What a pair these make! But even one of them is too imposing, too strong to be a nothing.
And most of all, his final paintings are splendid. I mean "New York I" IS New York. "Broadway Boogie Woogie" really makes you want to walk down a neon street. "Victory Boogie Woogie" -- formally a combination of neoplastic dogma and "Composition No. 9, 1913 (Scaffolding)" -- I'll bet captures just what VE day was like. These are masterpieces and they are FUN.
---
Now for the bad. First of all Mondrian seems like kind of an idiot, and a lot of this stuff is pure silliness. We've got one guy "renounc[ing] the dogma of the 'horizontal-vertical' in favor of the diagonal." We have Mondrian reacting to the news of a contemporary using curves in his art by "reply[ing], with a grimace of bitter disaprovel, 'I might have known.'" We've got some truly ridiculous and incomprehensible manifestos. For goodness's sake the man drew squares for 30 years straight and stopped looking at trees and grass because he wouldn't look at anything that wasn't a primary color!
Frank Elgar on the other hand is totally convinced: "Mondrian was a sensitive, contemplative man, capable of scaling the heights of poetry." "Mondrian, in his painting, has condensed a seething mass of forces, compressed an accumulation of energy, and mastered perfectly the occult powers of the universe." "[Mondrian was] one of the noblest minds that the world of art has ever known."
Aside from being fart-sniffing to a comical degree, Elgar's text is repetitious, boring, badly keyed to the images, pretentious in its references to Plotinus and other things Elgar clearly knows nothing about, and just generally of low quality. Also, Elgar's... rationalism (I guess?) is interfering with his humanity: "It seems unfortunate," Elgar writes of Mondrian's late work "that he [i.e. Mondrian] did not resist the temptation to transmit to his ill-named neo-plasticism the joys so amply provided by American life." Heaven forfend but an artist communicate joy in his work or deviate from his self imposed-dogma! He does make one rather good observation though: that 'the object' seems bound to disappear, even in Mondrian's early work.
---
Anyway I found this in G David's in Cambridge & it was a bargain & I have yet to be let down by a T&H book. Just wish the text wasn't so French, yeugh
July 9, 2019
Quite a good introduction to an enigmatic artist...who transcended the narrow confines of his work!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews