The 5 most important OBAS of Piet MONDRIAN

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was a painter of the Dutch avant-garde, founding Neoplasticism and being a member of the current De Stijl. A modern movement characterized by its pure and methodical abstraction. Thus, Mondrian simplifies to the maximum all the elements that make up his paintings to try to show spirituality with a basic and universal language. For the experts, Mondrian took abstraction to the extreme and, although this reduction meant that his works were considered simple and anodyne, behind that appearance there is a greater complexity.

In this new lesson from unPROFESOR.com we show you the main characteristics of Piet Mondrian and his most important works.

Before listing the most important works of Piet Mondrian, let's get to know this artist better. Of academic training, Mondrian began his career in 1892 at the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in Amsterdam. However, he went from containing his traditional landscapes to compositions with a new sense of light.

In those years, Jan Toorop, a leading artist of the

dutch luminism, introduces you to post-impressionistsFrench. A presentation that caused a great impact on Mondrian, transforming his works by the influence of the brushstroke and the intensity and strength of the color of Vincent van Gogh and the pointillist technique of Georges Seurat.

Already in the beginning of him, his taste for working in series is confirmed, creating multiple works from a single topic. Mondrian thus created his own style in which he reflects the nature spirituality. Here are some of the Characteristics of Piet Mondrian's most outstanding work:

• The artist simplify the subject until reducing it to its most basic aspects or elements, revealing the essence of the object and the balance of the forces of the universe.
• A force that is materialized in vertical and horizontal lines that shows the opposition between the negative and the positive, between the feminine and the masculine, or between movement and calm. Mondrian thus seeks balance.
• His most characteristic works are abstract paintings, non-figurative, creating geometric compositions of square and rectangular shapes full of color: yellow, red, black, blue, white, etc., creating a recognizable and personal style.
• A refined, iconic and highly influential style in popular culture and design, being a reference for the Bauhaus School or the designs of the couturier Yves Saint Laurent.
• Mondrian opted for the pure abstraction using a universal color palette with pure colors and basic shapes with influences from impressionism and cubism.
• Mondrian's style is the neoplasticism, key in abstract art and a new method for the representation of reality.

This work exemplifies Mondrian's step towards abstraction, being a landscape in which the painter adheres to cubist principles, reducing the tree to lines and planes with a brief palette of whites and grays.

Pier and ocean it is another of Piet Mondrian's most important works. This work is considered as fundamental in Mondrian's step towards pure abstraction. Curves, diagonals and color are eliminated, with horizontal and vertical lines appearing as a reference to nature. Everything is shown in balance.

In this work, already in full swing of the group of architects and artists Stijl, Mondrian moves away from the cubist palette with prevalence grays, ocher and browns and opt for primary colors that already marked his style. He refines abstraction and breaks with analytical cubism to fill his works with reds, yellows and blues.

This composition is significant within the evolution of the painter towards an essential style in which color and shapes are simplified to create a new style between cubism and futurism. The blocks of color and different widths contribute to create a new rhythm in line with the contemporary world.

The line and the primary colors manage to convey to the viewer all the Broadway rhythm and vibrancy showing us the tempo of jazz music that was then triumphant in the United States. Using abstract forms, Mondrian immerses the viewer in something as abstract as music, transmitting the energy of jazz.