A Mondrian painting, Composition No. III, with red, blue, yellow, and black (1929), sold in November for $51 million. The fools. I would have painted it for just $45 million.
Before I get into it, I’ll say I really like Mondrian's paintings. Always have. Mondrian was an early favorite artist of mine, and his work still does a lot for me. It's iconic, and sparsely beautiful. A Mondrian is the wonder of Modernism in pure form. But, I don’t know if I can duly justify his paintings. $51 million, it's a lot of money.
Learning art history, at least when I learned art history, the conceptual grandeur of Modernism was front and center. It's what we started with. Impressionism to Expressionism. Cubism. Fauvism. The Blue Rider. Avant-garde cafe culture. Paris. De Stijl. Bauhaus. Dada. For young me, it was exciting stuff. I ate it up.
A bright young guy with eyes for design, I loved the intellectual story of Modernism. And, it was all documented in beautiful, unique, and captivating artworks. Shifting and growing ideas shaped by clever creative people. I loved the challenge of sorting out the styles, the names, and the dates. Wading through art theory. Learning to grasp concepts that evolved across time and geography.
This is how you hear it told about Mondrian. No doubt he’s front and center to Modernism, but too often you hear of him only as reference to modernist movements, and styles.
I’m sure it happened the way they say it happened. Mondrian went through a lot of theoretical, philosophical, and spiritual growth coming to his aesthetic. It seems he was perpetually engaging in hotbeds of theory. Cubism. Theosophy. Paris avante-garde. He developed Neoplastic philosophy and De Stijl. He was a man who soaked up knowledge, and built his own resolute theories. I can’t and don’t dispute Mondrian's journey. I’m not an expert, but I don’t think it quite tells the whole story.
Nor does this. Early on Mondrian painted representationally. Mostly Dutch landscapes. Beautiful pieces. Windmills. Ponds. Curvy trees by gravel paths. His early work looks like a lot of talented young artists’. Good looking stuff. Good promise. And you even see throughlines to the style he would develop. But, too often, you hear this bit of his oeuvre used like some kind of cred. Tidbits to feed to bumpkins to prove Mondrian could actually paint.
You see Mondrian’s realist paintings overlaid with grid designs similar to his abstract paintings. Showing his abstract style as a pixelated offshoot of his realism. The vertical lines are trees or streams, the horizontals are horizons or roads etc. But, I don't know about this. They’re interesting graphics, and I’m sure he was aware of echoes of landscape in his abstraction. Any painter worth his salt knows the compositional permutations, but gridding up his landscapes as the explanation of his abstract style seems simplistic.
If we want to appreciate Mondrian's work, why do we short cut it? It's all high modernist theory, or it's all derived from landscapes. Maybe neither justification completes the job.
I was thinking of some iconic artists who tried for the heart of the matter by stripping things down. Jackson Pollock, got rid of his brushes and easel and went at it. Just spilled his theory, and his heartache, down there on the floor. Rothko went for the sublime in the subtle. Hemingway chopped paragraphs and sentences down to the bones. So did Elmore Leonard. Kurt Cobain and the grunge revolution chopped everything but their angst. Bob Dylan said, screw it I’ll just sing like Woody Guthrie.
Simplification. Get rid of the frivolous. At the root of Mondrian’s style, I think maybe, it was a gut thing. Sure, his artwork was deeply conceptual. Does that mean the paintings themselves are all concept? They can surely be both. Can’t they? A quick scan of the Mondrian Wikipedia page, and you see he said it.
“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.”
And
"Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of an abstract art. Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man."
Take these words away from preconceived notions or burdensome verbiage. They’re quotes about his values. And, he put his values in his artwork. His pieces contain his beliefs. A noble thing for an artist to try. Also, an efficient thing for an artist to do.
Is it possible to look at a Mondrian and see multitudes? Bypass the rigamarole. Could you clear your eyes, and find out Mondrian already did all the hard work for you? You feel something? Some bit of illumination or enlightenment. It’s the work a great painter does. Did Mondrian?
I grew up down the road from my uncle. He was a retired farmer. He was around a lot, and was like a grandfather figure. Our uncle was hard working, straight forward, and straight talking. He was a strong man, had good values, and stuck to them. No buts about it. He stripped things down, and found clear truths. I think about how he saw the world. He was dedicated to his vision.
Before I get into it, I’ll say I really like Mondrian's paintings. Always have. Mondrian was an early favorite artist of mine, and his work still does a lot for me. It's iconic, and sparsely beautiful. A Mondrian is the wonder of Modernism in pure form. But, I don’t know if I can duly justify his paintings. $51 million, it's a lot of money.
Learning art history, at least when I learned art history, the conceptual grandeur of Modernism was front and center. It's what we started with. Impressionism to Expressionism. Cubism. Fauvism. The Blue Rider. Avant-garde cafe culture. Paris. De Stijl. Bauhaus. Dada. For young me, it was exciting stuff. I ate it up.
A bright young guy with eyes for design, I loved the intellectual story of Modernism. And, it was all documented in beautiful, unique, and captivating artworks. Shifting and growing ideas shaped by clever creative people. I loved the challenge of sorting out the styles, the names, and the dates. Wading through art theory. Learning to grasp concepts that evolved across time and geography.
This is how you hear it told about Mondrian. No doubt he’s front and center to Modernism, but too often you hear of him only as reference to modernist movements, and styles.
I’m sure it happened the way they say it happened. Mondrian went through a lot of theoretical, philosophical, and spiritual growth coming to his aesthetic. It seems he was perpetually engaging in hotbeds of theory. Cubism. Theosophy. Paris avante-garde. He developed Neoplastic philosophy and De Stijl. He was a man who soaked up knowledge, and built his own resolute theories. I can’t and don’t dispute Mondrian's journey. I’m not an expert, but I don’t think it quite tells the whole story.
Nor does this. Early on Mondrian painted representationally. Mostly Dutch landscapes. Beautiful pieces. Windmills. Ponds. Curvy trees by gravel paths. His early work looks like a lot of talented young artists’. Good looking stuff. Good promise. And you even see throughlines to the style he would develop. But, too often, you hear this bit of his oeuvre used like some kind of cred. Tidbits to feed to bumpkins to prove Mondrian could actually paint.
You see Mondrian’s realist paintings overlaid with grid designs similar to his abstract paintings. Showing his abstract style as a pixelated offshoot of his realism. The vertical lines are trees or streams, the horizontals are horizons or roads etc. But, I don't know about this. They’re interesting graphics, and I’m sure he was aware of echoes of landscape in his abstraction. Any painter worth his salt knows the compositional permutations, but gridding up his landscapes as the explanation of his abstract style seems simplistic.
If we want to appreciate Mondrian's work, why do we short cut it? It's all high modernist theory, or it's all derived from landscapes. Maybe neither justification completes the job.
I was thinking of some iconic artists who tried for the heart of the matter by stripping things down. Jackson Pollock, got rid of his brushes and easel and went at it. Just spilled his theory, and his heartache, down there on the floor. Rothko went for the sublime in the subtle. Hemingway chopped paragraphs and sentences down to the bones. So did Elmore Leonard. Kurt Cobain and the grunge revolution chopped everything but their angst. Bob Dylan said, screw it I’ll just sing like Woody Guthrie.
Simplification. Get rid of the frivolous. At the root of Mondrian’s style, I think maybe, it was a gut thing. Sure, his artwork was deeply conceptual. Does that mean the paintings themselves are all concept? They can surely be both. Can’t they? A quick scan of the Mondrian Wikipedia page, and you see he said it.
“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.”
And
"Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of an abstract art. Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man."
Take these words away from preconceived notions or burdensome verbiage. They’re quotes about his values. And, he put his values in his artwork. His pieces contain his beliefs. A noble thing for an artist to try. Also, an efficient thing for an artist to do.
Is it possible to look at a Mondrian and see multitudes? Bypass the rigamarole. Could you clear your eyes, and find out Mondrian already did all the hard work for you? You feel something? Some bit of illumination or enlightenment. It’s the work a great painter does. Did Mondrian?
I grew up down the road from my uncle. He was a retired farmer. He was around a lot, and was like a grandfather figure. Our uncle was hard working, straight forward, and straight talking. He was a strong man, had good values, and stuck to them. No buts about it. He stripped things down, and found clear truths. I think about how he saw the world. He was dedicated to his vision.
Ted Walsh, Uncle's Farm, 2013
His farm was one of my favorite places. No frills, and economical. Flat roofs, simple materials. Concrete, tar, sand. Efficient and orderly, but in no way fussed. His garage had a wall of huge north facing windows. He said it was the most efficient light to work by, and he got the windows for a good price.
He loved to paint things. Not pictures. He painted and repainted everything regularly to look clean and fresh. His palette was simple. Red, blue, yellow, black, and white. Real colors, primary colors, Mondrian colors.
His house was red brick. All the farm buildings, painted fresh white. His new tractors were Ford and New Holland blue. The old tractors got rebuilt, and got fresh coats of whichever color was handy. He bought old army jeeps and rebuilt them as field vehicles. He painted the jeeps yellow top to bottom. Wheels, dash, seats, and all. His bicycle was yellow too. His canoe was red. He painted tools bright colors so he could find them if dropped in the field. And the whole farm was trimmed off in black. The farm bell outside his back door was shiney Rust-Oleum black. The roofs and driveway were black tar.
He had an aesthetic. I don’t know if he’d have said much about it if you told him so, but it was palpable. You felt it. At his farm you were inside his mindset (I’ve had similar type feelings in Frank Lloyd Wright buildings).
So, what to say about Mondrian paintings? I think maybe we don’t leave enough art alone. We couch it in pretext, and rationale. Useful sometimes certainly, but sometimes it's fun to clear your head and see if the work stands on its own. Let a Mondrian stand alone. Has he done the job? Is there something there?
I like it, but a lot of people would answer no. It’s just a bunch of squares and rectangles. And, well, they're kind of right. I can’t deny them. Tell them $51 million. You’ll hear you're outta your mind. But, Mondrian work is also iconic right? He’s a great. And, we really seem to like his stuff. There’s Mondrian swag. Underwear, home goods, toys. And, someone just paid $51 million for one.
In Mondrian’s work, I think there may be something much more elemental. Like my uncle’s farm. A guileless expression of belief. So, maybe I can’t bring myself to totally justify Mondrian’s work, but I’m also unwilling to dismiss it.
As for $51 million. There's no doubt some artwork is absolutely priceless. Truly priceless. But Composition No. III, with red, blue, yellow, and black? Well, $51 million is a whole lot less than priceless. It could all be a sad moot point anyway. There’s a likelihood the painting sits in a private collection, and none of us will ever see it again.
His farm was one of my favorite places. No frills, and economical. Flat roofs, simple materials. Concrete, tar, sand. Efficient and orderly, but in no way fussed. His garage had a wall of huge north facing windows. He said it was the most efficient light to work by, and he got the windows for a good price.
He loved to paint things. Not pictures. He painted and repainted everything regularly to look clean and fresh. His palette was simple. Red, blue, yellow, black, and white. Real colors, primary colors, Mondrian colors.
His house was red brick. All the farm buildings, painted fresh white. His new tractors were Ford and New Holland blue. The old tractors got rebuilt, and got fresh coats of whichever color was handy. He bought old army jeeps and rebuilt them as field vehicles. He painted the jeeps yellow top to bottom. Wheels, dash, seats, and all. His bicycle was yellow too. His canoe was red. He painted tools bright colors so he could find them if dropped in the field. And the whole farm was trimmed off in black. The farm bell outside his back door was shiney Rust-Oleum black. The roofs and driveway were black tar.
He had an aesthetic. I don’t know if he’d have said much about it if you told him so, but it was palpable. You felt it. At his farm you were inside his mindset (I’ve had similar type feelings in Frank Lloyd Wright buildings).
So, what to say about Mondrian paintings? I think maybe we don’t leave enough art alone. We couch it in pretext, and rationale. Useful sometimes certainly, but sometimes it's fun to clear your head and see if the work stands on its own. Let a Mondrian stand alone. Has he done the job? Is there something there?
I like it, but a lot of people would answer no. It’s just a bunch of squares and rectangles. And, well, they're kind of right. I can’t deny them. Tell them $51 million. You’ll hear you're outta your mind. But, Mondrian work is also iconic right? He’s a great. And, we really seem to like his stuff. There’s Mondrian swag. Underwear, home goods, toys. And, someone just paid $51 million for one.
In Mondrian’s work, I think there may be something much more elemental. Like my uncle’s farm. A guileless expression of belief. So, maybe I can’t bring myself to totally justify Mondrian’s work, but I’m also unwilling to dismiss it.
As for $51 million. There's no doubt some artwork is absolutely priceless. Truly priceless. But Composition No. III, with red, blue, yellow, and black? Well, $51 million is a whole lot less than priceless. It could all be a sad moot point anyway. There’s a likelihood the painting sits in a private collection, and none of us will ever see it again.
Broadway Boogie Woogie is possibly Mondrian's most famous painting. It's not necessarily my favorite Mondrian. I like the simpler ones. Maybe Broadway Boogie Woogie, while it has a great title, just doesn’t quite match what I feel a boogie woogie looks like. But I’d happily hang it in my house. It’s a handsome painting. I’d prefer the original 1943 price, $800. It’s at MOMA now, so it’s not going anywhere soon, but God only knows what it could fetch these days.
You can say a lot of things about Mondrian’s paintings, but they are handsome pieces. You could say a lot of things about my uncle’s farm, but it was a handsome place. So, I don’t know. If he were still alive, my uncle would sure have some clever words if he knew I put him in a blog post about a $51 million Mondrian. But, to me, no doubt, there is connecting tissue. And, I think that’s one reason I love art. Something like art connects. So, trust your eyes. It’s still a new year. Start out crisp, clean, and fresh. All squared up, and red, and yellow, and blue.
You can say a lot of things about Mondrian’s paintings, but they are handsome pieces. You could say a lot of things about my uncle’s farm, but it was a handsome place. So, I don’t know. If he were still alive, my uncle would sure have some clever words if he knew I put him in a blog post about a $51 million Mondrian. But, to me, no doubt, there is connecting tissue. And, I think that’s one reason I love art. Something like art connects. So, trust your eyes. It’s still a new year. Start out crisp, clean, and fresh. All squared up, and red, and yellow, and blue.