PIET MONDRIAN was instrumental in the formation of the DE STIJL movement in the Netherlands, founded by Theo van Doesburg.
MONDRIAN started his career looking at impressionism, fauvism, and cubism, and kept reducing his forms to their purest expression of line and primary colors.
What makes his work so enduring is not the doctrine, but his underlying spirituality.
I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things… I believe it is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true.
What an enduring legacy.
With love,
Mom