Week 2

Mondrian's Path to Abstraction

Piet Mondrian was a Dutch painter, his artistic career shifted over the years from Naturalistic and Impressionistic landscapes to Cubist inspired paintings. 

Most of Mondrians' works incorporate a tree, it is his motif that he repeats throughout his changing artistic practise. He was interested in the negative space and believed tht negative shapes were equal to black shapes. His paintings started out with a softenness and subdued tones, he wouldoften use the white space to lead your eye.

http://sirjohnlawesart.blogspot.com/2008/01/piet-mondrian-trees-as-barriers.html

His classic 'Red Tree' seems to evolve if you study his works, the tree morphs into lace shapes creating white space and interesting shapes. To achieve unity in his work he would often alter the landscape, eventually the tree he recreats so often turns into a grid formation. It follows his style, using only one tree, simple layout, strong colour and horizontals along with windy verticals and empty space. The grid form of the tree holds no illusion of a landscape, Mondrian reduced his colour pallete down to the primary colours in these later works.

http://www.tubafrenzy.org/weblog/archives/2005/01/cause_i_got_pac.html

Further influencing Modern Art and Design, for example the 'Red and Blue Chair', as well as modern architectue which follow the horizontals and verticals Mondrian incorporated.

http://pegasogalleryinternational.1stdibs.com/itemdetails.php?id=140405