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.