1913, Piet Mondrian, Tableau no. 1 -- Kroller-Muller Museum (Otterlo)
From the museum label: Piet Mondriaan is known particularly for his abstract work and his role as a pioneer in the artists' group De Stijl. His earliest work, however, is naturalistic, in the style of the Hague School and he went through various styles before reaching full abstraction. He became acquainted with cubism via the work of Cézanne, Picasso and Braque and he settled in Paris in 1911. This work shows the influence of the analytical cubism of Picasso and Braque, in which an object is analyzed, broken up into fragments and transformed into a complex structure. In this painting, composed of surfaces in greys and ochres between black lines, no concrete object is discernible. Nevertheless, it is probably an abstraction of a tree motif. As with the cubists, the composition is built up from the middle outwards, the forms fade towards the edges. The painting clearly demonstrates how drastically Mondriaan changed direction in Paris.
1913, Piet Mondrian, Tableau no. 1 -- Kroller-Muller Museum (Otterlo)
From the museum label: Piet Mondriaan is known particularly for his abstract work and his role as a pioneer in the artists' group De Stijl. His earliest work, however, is naturalistic, in the style of the Hague School and he went through various styles before reaching full abstraction. He became acquainted with cubism via the work of Cézanne, Picasso and Braque and he settled in Paris in 1911. This work shows the influence of the analytical cubism of Picasso and Braque, in which an object is analyzed, broken up into fragments and transformed into a complex structure. In this painting, composed of surfaces in greys and ochres between black lines, no concrete object is discernible. Nevertheless, it is probably an abstraction of a tree motif. As with the cubists, the composition is built up from the middle outwards, the forms fade towards the edges. The painting clearly demonstrates how drastically Mondriaan changed direction in Paris.