2014-10-31 Den Haag, Gemeente museum. Piet Mondriaan [1872-1944] DSCN5699

Piet Mondrian [1872-1944]

Victory Boogie Woogie

New York (United States)

1942-1944

height 127.5 cm width 127.5 cm

oil, tape, paper, charcoal and pencil on canvas

Gemeentemuseum: 0810747

When Mondrian early 1944 at 72 years of age died quite suddenly, Victory Boogie Woogie was still unfinished in his studio in New York. The diamond-shaped painting was covered with pieces of colored paper and plastic which Mondrian new accents and rhythms was investigating. If he would have had time, he would probably have been replaced by a painted cubes.

 

This diamond-shaped painting the rectangular planes and surfaces in the colors white, gray, blue (dark and light), red and yellow, and their complex interrelationships decisive. The planes are grouped horizontally and vertically. By cropping the image edge, there are also many diagonals in the image provided. Landmarks include the greenish gray triangular plane in the upper corner and the "checkerboard" (an accumulation of small patches), the lower right. The dynamics is based on horizontal and vertical lines but provide little guidance. They are the blocks as it were fragmented, repeatedly doubled nowhere extended and fanning out each.

 

Although the title Victory Boogie Woogie is not Mondrian, it is known that he saw this painting as a second Boogie Woogie (referring to an earlier painting from 1942-1943 titled Broadway Boogie-Woogie). And that in relation to this work also spoke of a Victory. Boogie Woogie refers to that time in New York popular new form of jazz. Victory can only signify the victory of a new art in a free world, which Mondrian in the darkest days of World War II kept believing.

Done