Around 1916/1917 - parallel to the founding of the group “De Stijl” - Mondrian once again returns to a more naturalistic rendering of typical Dutch motifs for commissioned works. The windmill and the stately farm Weltevreden, which he had already painted around 1905, are staged by him at different times of day. He is primarily interested in a visual experiment, which leads to the amazing mirror effects in the water surrounding the farm. In these works, it is no longer possible to clearly differentiate between above and below.
However, Mondrian’s main focus during these years is clearly on abstraction. In the sense of “De Stijl,” Mondrian reduces his paintings to monochrome surfaces. The lines, which soon stand at right angles to each other, develop from the spaces between these color surfaces. The line acquires increasingly greater presence in his works.
1918
Composition with Gray Lines [Composition with Grid 3: Lozenge Composition]
His grid-like paintings appear geometric and constructed. In fact, however, Mondrian’s work is determined by an experimental process. After painting “Composition with Gray Lines” (1918), he rotates the work by forty-five degrees; only now is the work complete for him.
1919
Composition with Grid 8: Checkerboard Composition with Dark Colors
As gray as the political reality of the 1920s is, the development of international art is illustrious and experimental - many artists break with conventional structures and forms. They use artistic expression to sharply criticize the social ills of their time.
The Netherlands remains neutral in the First World War. While Europe goes up in flames, an important new art movement emerges in the Netherlands: De Stijl.
1917
Cover image of the first issue of the periodical De Stijl
published by Theo van Doesburg, October 1917
At first glance, the artworks of this movement appear as if they were created with a ruler on graph paper. However, a closer look at Piet Mondrian’s work reveals vibrant artworks composed of luminous primary colors that are meant to reflect the optimistic vision of the future held by the artists associated with De Stijl. Full of confidence and a powerful sense of utopia, the founding members Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and Gerrit Rietveld strive to reshape the world in all aspects of life. Since 1917, the center of the De Stijl movement is the eponymous magazine published by van Doesburg in Leiden, which until 1931, offers international artists and theoreticians a forum for visual art, architecture and urban planning, music, film, and literature.
Abstraction - i.e., the reduction of form and color - is considered the universal language of the artists’ group.
ca. 1926
Portrait of Piet Mondrian
Photo: unknown, Paris, ca. 1926, RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History
It is not until 1919, after the end of the First World War, that Mondrian travels again to France. He notices that Paris has lost much of the artistic-revolutionary energy he had felt just a few years before. From his perspective, art seems to be moving backwards. Still convinced that art plays a key role in creating a harmonious society in which opposites can enhance and enrich each other, he tries to make this very idea visible in his compositions. Mondrian also sets up his new studio at 5, rue de Coulmiers according to the criteria of Neoplasticism-squares, lines, rectangular blocks, and movable cardboard panels in the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue hang on the walls. For him, it is clear what the new art should look like. But Paris does not seem ready for Mondrian’s radical abstraction. His neoplastic work meets with incomprehension. Further hampered by renewed financial difficulties, Mondrian considers giving up painting. He makes ends meet with sporadic sales of flower paintings.
October 1933
Piet Mondrian in his Paris studio
October 1933. Photograph by Charles Karsten, RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History
During the First World War, Piet Mondrian is forced to stay in Laren, among other places. There, he meets the real estate agent Salomon Bernard “Sal” Slijper in 1915.
1930
Henri van de Velde, Portrait of Sal Slijper
1930, Oil on panel, 32.5 × 27.2 cm Collection Arnhem Museum
Slijper discovers the painting “Composition No. IV” (1914) in the inn De Linden. It fascinates him so much that he buys it from the innkeeper. Through her, the two meet; at first Mondrian is reserved, assuming Slijper is acting out of pity and not out of interest in his art.
However, since there is a genuine interest – and both gentlemen share a passion for quality clothing and good food, as well as for dancing and music – Slijper becomes a friend and patron of Mondrian.
24 May 1916
Letter by Piet Mondrian to Sal Slijper
24 May 1916, Archive of Sal Slijper, RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History
When the latter returns to Paris in 1919, it is only because Slijper bought his pre-war paintings from him (without having seen them) and thus supported him financially. Even when Slijper stops buying works from 1922 onwards, they remain friends, especially since Slijper makes an effort to promote and exhibit Mondrian’s work.
When Slijper dies in 1971, he bequeaths his entire Mondrian collection to the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (now the Kunstmuseum Den Haag), which boasts one of the largest Mondrian collections in the world.
When the Charleston becomes known in Europe in the 1920s and gives rise to indignation in the press, the enthusiastic dancer Mondrian positions himself publicly.
In 1926, he declares to the correspondent of the Amsterdam newspaper “De Telegraaf”: “How can this sporting dance be banned! After all, the dancers keep a measured distance from each other, and they have to work so energetically that there is no time to think of love. If this prohibition is maintained, that is sufficient reason for me never to set foot in this country again.” [Quoted in German in: Michel Seuphor, “Piet Mondrian, Leben und Werk” (Cologne 1957), p. 170]. Here, it becomes quite clear what enormous significance dancing has for Piet Mondrian.
