"I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things…"
From this we can begin to examine Mondrian, his artistic philosophy and his art and divine greater meaning from his geometric paintings. Neoplasticism as an artistic theory is Mondrians attempt to express the distilled essecence of what inspires him, which is most often nature. He demonstrates this foundation in abstract, with dark perpendicular lines, filling in some of the resulting shapes with primary colours as seen here:
This seems to me to be an almost exlusively personal way of working, with much focus on producing his personal veiw on a fundamental abstractionist representation of the beauty of nature rather than a desire to impart something to the observer. As such, the meaning only becomes relevant after knowing why it was created. Therefore, to my mind, this fails a major definition of the purpose of art (the piece is a gateway through which the creator imparts something to the observer). Nevertheless, Mondrian's work is much lauded and so exploring the mediums in different ways such as this is an interesting excercise for me to begin understanding mean from form and material.
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This image one my attempts to create my own visual language by working with different materials and mediums basing my attempts on Mondrians work in order to compare and contrast the differences. Mondrians work was done with oils on canvas. The image I produced above was created by manipulating individual pixels on a digital image. The effect this has is subtle. There is no texture at all, anything of an individual colour is a pure version of that colour. In some ways, this reinforces Mondrians desire to "reach the foundation" of things, being an even more pure representation of what he himself creates.
I further explored mediums by doing another rendition of a similar picture with copic markers and inks. I wanted to see how the two different mediums interacted and behaved aesthetically together. Interestingly, they both have a similar effect when wet ink is painted over dried ink. It streaks across the page as it layers. The copic markers were good for getting the iconic straight, bold lines of Mondrian's Neo-Plastic style but the streaking of both the markers and the ink made the image messier and less pleasing to look at.
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I wanted to try communicating the same intended meaning as Mondrians work but to a more specific audience. I chose to try and appeal to a demographic of young girls, aged 5-9. I also attempted to use visual language to help make it more appealing to this demographic. For example, I decided against the rigid cleanliness of lines and made it messier, scratchier and more loose. This was to make the intended audience relate to the artwork more, it would be more familiar to them, being closer to their own pieces of art. Secondly, I used wavy, curved lines as opposed to straight lines as gender perceptions in society as well as consensus in anatomy and the artistic figure drawing world that men are composed of straight lines whereas women are composed of curves. And finally I changed the three colours from the primary colours to vary shades of pink or purple since that is a predominant favourite colour of my target demographic.
Here is the final piece I did for this:
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All artists use their art to communicate, to some extent. Whether that be a story, an idea, a feeling or something else entirely, the piece is a gateway through which the creator imparts something to the observer.
The debate regarding what actually constitutes art still rages on, forever unending. Some believe it is the intent of the creator, that anything made with intention to be art can therefor be designated as "art". Whereas others believe that art is in the eye of the beholder, dependent on the observer labelling it as art.
"I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things…
I believe it is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true."
a close examination of this painting begins to reveal something of the artist's method. Mondrian's paintings are not composed of perfectly flat planes of color, as one might expect. Brush strokes are evident throughout, although they are subtle, and the artist appears to have used different techniques for the various elements.
The black lines are the flattest elements, with the least amount of depth. The colored forms have the most obvious brush strokes, all running in one direction. Most interesting, however, are the white forms, which clearly have been painted in layers, using brush strokes running in different directions. This generates a greater sense of depth in the white forms, as though they are overwhelming the lines and the colors, which indeed they were, as Mondrian's paintings of this period came to be increasingly dominated by white space.
Identify
Piet Mondrian
-Oil Paint
-Canvas
Experiment
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DADA - Neo-Plasticism
