|
|
| |
|
|
In 1918, Piet Mondrian created his first “losangique” paintings, such as Composition No. 1 (also known as Composition 1A), by tilting a square canvas 45 degrees. There are 16 such canvases still extant, ranging in date from 1918 to 1944. A large number of these diamond-shaped works were created in 1925 and 1926, following Mondrian’s break with the De Stijl group over Theo van Doesburg’s introduction of the diagonal. Mondrian felt that in so doing van Doesburg had betrayed the movement’s fundamental principles, thus forfeiting the static immutability achieved through stable verticals and horizontals. Mondrian asserted, however, that his own rotated canvases maintained the desired equilibrium of the grid, while the 45-degree turn allowed for longer lines.
From 1930 to 1933, Mondrian began to eliminate color in many of his canvases, producing in works like Composition No. 1, paintings of the utmost simplicity, in which the placement and varying thickness of lines determine the painting’s rhythm. Composition No. 1, is the earlier of only two paintings by Mondrian in which none of the verticals and horizontals intersect within the confines of the canvas: two of them touch at the center of the lower right edge, but their intersection continues beyond the picture plane (suggesting that the work is taken from a larger whole). Art historian Rosalind Krauss notes that this exemplifies a centrifugal disposition of the grid, while works whose lines stop short of the picture’s edge (implying that it is a self-contained unit) evince a centripetal tendency. Krauss argues that these dual and conflicting readings of the grid embody the central conflict of Mondrian’s ambition: to represent properties of materials or perception while also responding to a higher spiritual call.
Composition No. 1, 1930. Oil on canvas. 29 5/8 X 29 5/8 inches; vertical axis: 41 3/8 inches. Hilla Rebay Collection 71.1936.R96.
|
|
|
