Thursday 17 May 2007

Essence 2


Here's how Piet Mondrian's trees evolved.
It's an incredible and fascinating journey to witness!
What changes? What does he lose and what does he exaggerate? Through these three pieces, we can see how his thought processes and decisions led him towards a personal sylvian essence.
N.B. Do check out the wikipedia link: It'll take you to my favourite Mondrian piece, Broadway Boogie-Woogie!

2 comments:

esruel said...

The second painting really appeals to me, for some reason. The leaves seem fishlike - or is it that the fish seem leaflike? I like it, though. I wonder if it's a comment that everything might have come from the sea. Hmmm...

solv said...

Mondrian seemed to ditch the curves in the transition from the second to the third piece. If you look closely, you can see lots of T shapes in the second piece, and it's these shapes that Mondrian went with, blending them together into squares and rectangles. I think he was interested in a very linear tree form, so he focused on the branches above all else. Stenographically, squares and rectangles are indicative of a logical mind, whereas curves and circles are associated more with an emotional personality. I wonder how much emotion one can discern from the abstracted third piece. I feel that there's certainly a strong sense of control and order in it - a sense of exploration and discovery.