The exhibition “Piet Mondrian. From figuration to abstraction”, al MUDEC in Milan until March 27th, retraces, with not a few gaps, the path of the great Dutch artist, born in the Netherlands in 1872, father of neoplasticism.
Traditionally trained, Mondrian follows courses in live drawing and still life painting at theRoyal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdamwhile in The Hague, a free association of artists, the so-called Hague School, painted the unadorned Dutch landscape and the simple life of peasants and fishermen.
The review opens with a juxtaposition among the works of some of those painters and Mondrian’s early works that feel the influence of their melancholy landscapes, with dark and subdued tones.
Here are his barns, countryside, farms, woods, cows, trees that are reflected in the water, mills… and precisely the mill of Oostzijdse, on the Gein river, is the subject he portrays most.
His tendency to work in series, an early habit, already reveals how much the artist detaches himself from the academic tradition. Even before hearing about Monet’s series, he shows some interest in the tension that develops between the recurrence of the same motif and the possible variations of its aspects.
Fundamental to his artistic research is the trip to Paris, in 1912, where knows Picasso and Braque, about ten years younger than him. His “Compositions” and “Tree compositions” are born from Cubist references, the volumes built with colors, lines and planes.
It is towards the end of the 1920s that his paintings illustrate the slow path of renunciation of the grill, whose result is theinvention of neoplasticism. A sort of dualism destined to dissolve any harmony that is not double: everything that is not “determined by its opposite” is “vague”, “individual”, “tragic”, writes the artist.
His works are made from a set of “universal” elements: planes of primary color – red, yellow, blue – which are opposed to planes of “non-color”, gray, black, white; vertical lines that oppose horizontal lines in absolute geometric rigor.
They are the paintings for which Mondrian is better known and more recognizable. It is the real Mondrian. Too bad that there are only 3 paintings on display.
His style is renewed when he decides to go and live in NewYork: now 68 years old he lets himself be surrounded by the lively atmosphere and the rhythm of the city that never sleeps.
Between concerts by Dizzie Gillespie, Charlie Parker e Theolonious Monk, in the frenzy of the syncopated rhythm of the music, jazz and boggie lead him to force the rigorous grids he has accustomed us to: the canvases are filled with red, blue and yellow rectangles, which stand out bright against the white background. And the music becomes the protagonist, even from the titles, such as “Broadway boggie-woogie”. Unfortunately there are no paintings from this last artistic period. But only a video installation.
“Piet Mondrian. From figuration to abstraction “
MUDEC – Museum of Cultures of Milan – Via Tortona, 56 – Milan
November 24, 2021 – March 27, 2022
Hours: Mon 2.30pm – 7.30pm | Tue, Wed, Fri, Sun 10.00 – 19.30 | Thu, Sat 10 am-10.30pm
Tickets: Full € 14 – Reduced € 12
Infoline: 02/54917 (lun-ven 10.00-17.00)
Catalog: 24ORE Culture