Mondrian – non-objective art

On the 1. of february 2014, the 70. day of death of Piet Mondrian, the exhibition „Mondrian. Farbe“ opened in the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg. This exhibition shows Mondrian‘s
artistic development in terms of colour. The works of art derive from international art collections like the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag or the Tate National in London.

Piet Mondrian was born on the 7. march in 1872 in Amersfoort, the Netherlands and was an artist of the classic modernity. He established the neoplasticism which he defined in his essay „Le Néo-Plasticisme“ in 1920. Moreover he is said to be a representative of the Dutch constructivism and the concrete art and the founder of the abstract painting. After painting influenced by for example Van Gogh or Picasso since 1900 he started from 1920 on to paint his well-known geometric neoplastic paintings. Later on Mondrian lived in exile in New York where he continued painting and died on the 1. of february in 1944.

First Mondrian was interested in the technique of painting of the impressionists. He predominantly drew landscapes with motives like trees and mills. Since 1905 he started to paint in an experimental way. Influenced by the cubism many of his paintings consists out of a black grate and coloured plains. In the beginning he turned away from colours and painted solely with shades of grey. After 1921 he decided to paint these plains in the fundamental colours blue, red and yellow only. Exactly these paintings are the ones which made him famous and crosses one‘s mind by hearing Mondrian. While living in exile he developed painitngs which show mosaics out of the fundamental colours. Mondrian‘s paintings articulate through the colours. His aim was to diminish art to the essential.

Piet Mondrian exerted a huge influence to the classical modernity with his style of painting and deepened as the founder of the abstract painting the constructivism and changed the hitherto existing picture language.
Til the 11. may 2014 visitors of the Bucerius Kunst Forum have the chance to regard this influential art.

Alexander Böttcher