Mondrian

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), who can be assigned to the school of classical modernism, was born in Amersfort, Netherlands. After studying in Amsterdam, he started his artist´s career in the impressionist style as a figure and landscape painter. His works from these years showed the influence of Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) and of Fauvism, a French school from the beginning of the 20th century. When he traveled to Paris in 1911, he discovered Pablo Picasso´s works (1881-1973) and, with that, Cubism. He thereafter became a pioneer of abstract painting in the Netherlands. From the 1920s on, his paintings show a vertical and horizontal composition that, combined with the oppositions of blue, yellow, red, and non-colored spaces, turned into his trademark. His art was very appreciated in New York, where he spent his last years. Mondrian was not only a painter but also an art theoretician and cofounder of the art school De Stijl.