PIET MONDRIAN

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) was a Dutch painter, one of the founders of abstract painting and a leading figure of neoplasticism. He was one of the most prominent representatives of geometric abstraction and one of the greatest modern artists in the world. The geometric abstraction movement originated during the First World War in the Netherlands and is associated with the names of Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Bart van der Leck, and Vilmos Huszár, whose efforts centered around the magazine De Stijl, founded in 1917. Their art was guided by two main principles: complete abstraction (excluding any references to reality) and the limitation of artistic concepts to straight lines, right angles, and three primary colors – blue, red, and yellow – in conjunction with white, gray, and black. Mondrian pushed abstract painting to its furthest limits. Through radical simplification of composition and reduction of colors, he sought to capture the fundamental principles to which all visible things are subject. He also dealt with urban planning, architecture, and interior design.