Piet Mondrian

Merging together square and lines

Observation of the works below in sequential order reveals a gradual increase in the number of lines, which divide the space of the canvas into a growing number of parts. The tendency we have observed during the 1920s toward a space of ever-greater rarefaction and synthesis gradually gave way to the opposite tendency, whereby an increasing  level  of articulation and complexity was progressively reintroduced into the canvases as from 1934:

The solid and defined square of the 1920s now appears to undergo dilution on contact with the lines.

Black opens to white

This composition presents an area of square form closed on four sides in the lower right section. The square field expresses a moment of equilibrium between the opposing directions, which elsewhere give birth to variable proportions and then expand in a univocal and absolute way (in exclusively horizontal or vertical terms) beyond the canvas toward infinite space. The large yellow field in the upper left section and the gray one lower down to the right help to keep the square in a state of unstable equilibrium.

Fundamental message

In Fig. 2 the double horizontal line running through the central area of Fig. 1 expands into two distinct horizontal lines crossed by two vertical lines. The interaction between verticals and horizontals generates a small square in the center. The place of the closed square form seen in Fig. 1 is taken here by a more complex structure made up of two juxtaposed rectangles whose interaction generate a square form (Fig. 2a)

A relationship is established between a small square of sharply defined and definite size appearing in the center and a larger indefinite square placed in the lower section, which could almost be seen as the smaller one an instant after the lines have passed. By adopting a dynamic vision different parts of the composition become successive moments of one and the same element undergoing transformation. The dynamic movement of the lines drags along the small central square, which opens up while remaining in unstable equilibrium between vertical and horizontal predominance. Another way to open unity to multiplicity, certainty of the square form to the uncertain.

Only by adopting a dynamic vision of reality we shall be able to interpret the temporary imbalances and asymmetries of our daily life as necessary fragments of a much wider picture where a universal balance is to be found. A picture, however, daily life does not show us at once. Every situation in life which appears as an obstacle today may become part of a unitary, more balanced process tomorrow. Every opposition may turn to our advantage in the course of time. This is one of the fundamental messages of the Neoplastic geometry.

Increasing multiplicity

The two horizontal lines running through the previous canvases become four in Composition with Yellow (Fig. 3):

Thirteen black lines intersect in the central field of the canvas and form a large number of white planes. Areas of greater or lesser horizontal and vertical extension can be seen (Diagram A). Vertical and horizontal attain equivalence in some points to form smaller or larger squares:

Space expands and contracts under the pressure of the two contending directions, which attain equivalence and a more stable equilibrium for an instant before opening up again to the more or less marked predominance of one or the other. Equivalences of opposite values are born and dissolve, are lost and found again in forms that are always new, without ever being fully attained. The idea of the square, i.e. an equivalence of opposites, seems to be expressed here too more as a process than a state.

The solid and definite square of the 1920s now appears to undergo dilution on contact with the lines. The latter interact to expand and contract the space, above all in the central area, outside which they become entities in their own right; all horizontals or all verticals, one thing excluding the other. The space becomes absolute and eliminates any possible relationship between the parts.

In the lower right section, the central field flows toward an area of greater synthesis where we can pause to observe a smaller number of planes (Fig. 4b). One of a bright blue color appears as the fourth part of a larger form that recalls the closed square of previous compositions by virtue of the position it occupies.

We move from an area of extremely variable space (the central field), where equivalence appears in a state of becoming, to one in which the space is more constant (the smaller field of Fig. 4b) and then to a more stable synthesis of opposite values high-lighted by color. The accent of color seems designed to draw attention to a square, which appears as a sort of model of which the planes observed in the central area constitute a variation (Fig. 4a).

Composition N. 12 with Blue (Fig. 4) appears to offer a summary of all the compositions that Mondrian produced between 1927 and 1932 involving variations on the theme of the square. See here below four of these compositions consisting of a variety of proportions tending to approximate squares: 

We seem to see the variable proportions of the above canvases brought together in Fig. 4:

Visit next page: Neoplasticism – Part 5

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