Piet Mondrian

In Composition B Mondrian adopts a constant module serving to establish a more controlled rhythm in the alternation of planes. We note two contiguous yellow planes of rectangular proportions verging on squares. The same shape reappears lower down once in red and once in light gray. On the right, a large blue area proves to be the sum of the initial module repeated twice vertically. Lower down we have three rectangles – one yellow, one black, and one dark gray – presenting proportions that are half the initial module: 

Fig. 2a: Though different both in color and in size, these planes are based on the same parameter. Each is an expansion or contraction, either vertical or horizontal, of a pre-established unit of measurement. The planes close to the edges of the canvas suddenly assume instead anomalous proportions that are no longer related to the module. After a phase of greater constancy to be observed in the central area, everything changes unpredictably.

The eight planes that are wholly proportional to the module form a large square when viewed all together. The square shows a slight horizontal prevalence to compensate the vertical format of the canvas. The space in this square field displays a certain degree of constancy whereas everything changes around it. With a large square visibly structured and colored within, Mondrian seeks here to present a unitary synthesis open to multiplicity; the one and the many.

Fig. 4: The square unit is stirred by an asymmetric distribution of colored planes of various size and proportions. The artist suggests the uncertain and temporary nature of our attempts to find balance and unity of opposites.
Every Neoplastic composition expresses this dialectic between the contradictory aspects and the unforeseeable flow of existence in everyday life and the human need to stabilize them and find something of greater constancy and duration. A square form keeps space constant while differences in size, proportion and color change it.

After reverting to an homogenous white field expressing unity (Fig. 3 and 4), Mondrian still endeavored in the works of 1921-22 to express both the one and the many at the same time (Fig. 5 and 6), but then ended up once again highlighting a large white square, made more dynamic and asymmetric by a variable set of colored areas (Fig. 7 and 8). The unitary/constant aspect and the manifold/variable aspect influenced one another reciprocally while remaining clearly separate and distinct. 

It is important to reassert that we use the word „square“ to describe a balanced relationship between horizontal and vertical which is in fact never a preconceived geometrical form. Mathematics have nothing to do with Neoplastic space. Every square proportion of each individual composition is different from the other according to the context: here we see a slightly more vertical square and there a square which expands horizontally. 

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The interaction between the one and the many goes on with new compositions.
With respect to the compositions of the early 1920-21 the lines acquire now greater autonomy and the composition becomes more dynamic. In the compositions of 1920-21 (see also Fig. 3 and 4 higher up on this page) the lines can in fact almost be seen as framing the large square that occupies most of the central area and thus inhibits their dynamic continuity. In these new compositions of the late 1920s the square instead seems to be generated by the space of the lines and to share their infinite quality.

With the lines taking on the function of expressing space that continues uninterruptedly, the artist’s gaze can concentrate on the square and a smaller number of planes. The painter uses virtually endless lines to maintain ideal contact between the finite space of the canvas and the multifarious real space of life. Balanced compositions transforms imbalances, which multiply out of all proportion in reality, into ideal equilibriums manifested on the surface of a canvas. 

The lines have grown in thickness and continue beyond the perimeter of the canvases. As Maurizio Calvesi points out, the canvas is “an ideal center in which the spatial event is determined in its wholeness and totality no less than in its dynamic continuity. Mondrian wrote in 1920 that the straight lines intersect and touch one another tangentially but continue uninterruptedly. The result radiates out in fact from the painting to the infinite, but the canvas exhausts the intuition of the whole within itself.” The lines hint at the immeasurable extension of physical reality the canvas is part of; a part which aim at ideally concentrating the whole in its essence.

Fig. 12 presents four areas verging to the proportions of squares (1, 2, 4) which are fully accomplished in area 2 only which however remains open and therefore subject to the expanding action of the lines. The closed area 1 appears as the only well defined square (slightly horizontal to compensates the vertical prevalences of areas 3, 5, 6) while area 5 again suggests indeterminate proportions. The parts express an intimate sense of permanence and duration while everything is nonetheless on the verge of flux and motion.

As mentioned the artist seeks in these works to open and expand the square while maintaining its visibility at the same time. The concept of space here is still essentially the one that inspired his work from the very beginning: opening up to variety and mutability on the one hand while tending to concentrate on the other and thereby generating an ideal, more constant synthesis which then re-opens to variety and mutability. 

The space of these compositions is markedly asymmetric but everything is kept in perfect equilibrium. It does the mind good to think that asymmetry and diversity can be resolved in a harmonious space. If only this could be achieved more often in social life.

The play of equilibrium regards not only form but also very subtle vibrations of color. The planes appear to have been painted there and then, thus suggesting intuition more than cool elaboration. The fields of red are splendidly rendered, as indeed are those of white, which have none of the flatness unfortunately seen in standard reproductions. There are extremely subtle variations of every primary color, as there are of every shade of gray. As Jaffé wrote: “The painter let himself be guided by his feeling for color and rhythm, and he made alterations and corrections as he worked; over paintings to change the color of some of the areas can still be detected. The skilled treatment and masterly balance of the canvases are the result not of a theory but of a long experience as a painter.”

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The lozenge therefore already seems in itself a way to make the equivalence of opposites, i.e. the square, more dynamic.

On observing the four lozenges we note how a closed area nearing the proportions of a square (first lozenge) opens up (second and third) while in the fourth one a closed square re-appears which consists of lines which assume variable thickness. On the one hand an open square area extends with the lines toward a virtually infinite space (the finite opens up to the infinite; the one opens up to the many) and on the other hand a renewed closed square is made of a relative multiplicity through lines varying in thickness. In both cases, the one interacts with the many. Once again, Mondrian seeks in these works to open and expand the square while maintaining its visibility at the same time.

We shall now examine Lozenge with Yellow Lines which constitute a synthesis of all previous compositions of this type.

Yellow is an intermediate value between black and white, sufficiently dark to be differentiated from white but, at the same time, not so radically opposite as black. The opposite values now seem communicate and achieve unitary expression in terms both of form and of color, with horizontal and vertical simultaneously present for an instant in every line and the synthesis of black and white in an intermediate color, which yellow appears to constitute in this case. On observing this square and contemplating the differing thickness of the lines, we are faced with a unity undergoing transformation from one side to the other; a synthesis that already appears comparatively manifold in itself. We perceive a unity that tends to become rather than to be. It endures but changes at the same time; a square that is open, dynamic, asymmetric, and entirely expressed by color.

This composition goes to the heart of the problem: to show the manifold in unitary form; to open up unity, i.e. the postulate of consciousness, to the changing aspect of the natural universe and existence in time but without losing sight of it. Once again we recall the fundamental issue: The one and the many appear as antithetical realities in the human dimension; in actual fact, they are the same thing.

The dialectic between unity and multiplicity continued throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. The single white square field (1920) took on color, underwent duplication and opened up on one or two sides (1930). A closed square developed out of the dynamic continuity of the lines around 1931: sometimes more horizontal, sometimes more vertical; sometimes larger, sometimes smaller; sometimes blue, sometimes yellow. The single square of 1920 gradually gave way to a variety of probable square forms. Unity and multiplicity tended to interpenetrate.

In actual fact, the square opened up and interpenetrated with the variety of forms and colors in the rectangular canvases while seeking in the lozenge compositions to absorb that variety with no extensive change to itself. In the first case, the square opens up in the direction of multiplicity; in the second, the square absorbs multiplicity while remaining substantially one:

In this phase Mondrian is like a composer who gradually reduces the orchestra to a solo instrument, an almost imperceptible sound that can still be varied in an effort to express the whole. In a white field crossed by four black lines, the thickness of a line can also serve in a space moving toward ever-greater synthesis to calibrate the weights and influence the overall economy of the composition.

These lozenge compositions constitute the moment of greatest correspondence between the one and the many. 

With the canvases of the late 1920’s and above all this lozenge of 1933, the artist appears to have given material expression to an idea that had guided him, canvas after canvas, for roughly twenty years of work, namely to express the multiple in unitary form and endow it with the stability required by consciousness without, however, causing it to atrophy in overly rigid and constant geometric forms. The artist felt for a moment that he had achieved his objective with a square undergoing transformation while remaining relatively stable.

Nonetheless, if we compare Lozenge with Yellow Lines with the previous works and in particular with those produced up to 1920:

it appears immediately obvious that by 1933 the multiple aspect had been considerably reduced almost to the point of elimination. Around 1930 Mondrian painted in black and white or with one or two colors inside predominantly white fields. In the span of a decade, the manifold space (1912 – 1919) appears to have been completely absorbed by the square, which was used during the 1920’s and early 1930’s in an attempt to reformulate in conceptual synthesis a space that is in reality far more structured and complex. The square we see in Lozenge with Yellow Lines is a symbolic representation that does not suggest the variety of the real world. In 1933 the space of external reality had undergone marked internalization in the far more condensed forms of thought; the physical seemed to be expressed in excessively mental terms. The painter was soon to realize that his canvases did not convey a sense of the variety perceived by the eye in nature or urban space, the rich and multiform aspect of color previously captured with his dunes and trees, his Cubist works, and his checkerboard compositions. While Lozenge with Yellow Lines can therefore be regarded as a point of arrival, at the same time, as in other moments of Mondrian’s artistic development, the work also represents a new point of departure. 

As Michel Seuphor puts it in his beautiful biography of Mondrian: “Sometimes he thinks he has found it. So he stops, observes the work, and says: It’s done. But the clock of his life keeps on ticking and is already driving him forward. He soon realizes that nothing is done and everything has to start all over again.”

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