Piet
Mondrian was a Dutch painter born 1872. His
most popular paintings include Composition in
Red, Yellow and Blue and Composition in White,
Black and Red. He carried abstraction to its
furthest limits. Through radical simplification
of composition and color, he sought to expose
the basic principles that underlie all appearances.
Piet Mondrian, the painter of architectonic
grids who seemed to reject nature, had early
on steeped himself in the study of landscapes
and flowers. His haunting pictures of farms,
windmills and factories treat nature as a dynamic
interplay of forces. Influenced by Helena Blavatsky's
Theosophical movement, the fastidious Dutch
artist of strict Calvinist upbringing turned
to mystical introspection, producing symbolist
images like Dying Sunflower (1908).
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