Piet Mondrian

Born:1872
Died: 1944
Art Style: Abstract
Nationality: Dutch
Quote: "Art is not made for anybody and is, at the same time, for everybody."

Mondrian's Artwork

Mondrian's laboratory was spotless white. He wore a light smock, with his clean-shaven face, taciturn, wearing his heavy glasses. All there was that wasn't white was large mat boards, rectangles in yellow, red, and blue, hung in asymmetric arrangements on all white.

A painting by Malevich or Van Doesburg or Kupka has a variety of shapes. But Mondrian does not consist of blue rectangles and red rectangles and yellow rectangles and white rectangles. Mondrian wanted the infinite, and shape is finite. A straight line is infinitely extendable, and the open-ended space between two parallel straight lines is infinitely extendable. The positive and the negative are the causes of all action ... The positive and the negative break up oneness, they are the cause of all unhappiness. The union of the positive and the negative is happiness.

- From David Sylvester, "About Modern Art: Critical Essays, 1948-1997"

Mondrian who was originally dutch, and born in Amersfoort, Netherlands.The family moved to Winterswijk when his father, Pieter Cornelius Mondriaan, was appointed head teacher at a local primary school. Mondrian was introduced to art from a very early age since his father was a qualified drawing teacher, and with his uncle, Fritz Mondriaan (a pupil of Willem Maris of The Hague School of artists). Mondrian often painted and drew along the river Gein. After a strictly Protestant upbringing, in 1892, Mondrian entered the Academy for Fine Art in Amsterdam. He began his career as a teacher in primary education already qualified as a teacher, but while teaching he also practiced painting. In 1908, Mondrian became interested in theosophy which inspired him to do many paintings. In 1911, Mondrian moved to Paris. Then in 1914, he visited the Netherlands for 5 years and returned to France in 1919. In 1938, he moved from London to New York. Finally in 1944, Mondrian died.

Wassily Kandinsky

Born: 1866
Died: 1944
Art Style: Abstract---His work changed from fluid and organic to geometric and finally to pictographic.
Nationality: Russian
Quote: "Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul."

Kandinsky was inspired by artists George Wagner and Monet, he was also inspired spiritually by H. P. Blavatsky, a man who worked in the field of theosophy. 



he made artworks like:
Composition VII—according to Kandinsky, the most complex piece he ever painted (1913)  he also made composition ten, another abstract painting of his.

Intersting facts:

•  Kandinsky married his cousin, Anna Chimyakina.
• He studied in graphic art in 1900. His teacher was happy with his work but thought the palet was too bright, so he made Kandinsky use a black and white spectrum to "study the form as that".
• Kandinsky and his friend, Franstem Mark, established agroup called blue rider (Blaue Reiter), He also named one of his paintings after the group.
• Most of his artworks were just called composition, and then a roman nuemral for the order in which they were made (comp. I, comp. II, comp. III, etc.).