Mondrian: Windmills to Tableaux

Pictures at the Stedelijk…

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The Mill 1917

Francesco: It started from reality. He painted himself. He painted windmills. Then he began to explore the nature of beauty.

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Sirin: His modernism was about reduction. Reducing beauty to pure form.

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Francesco: Yes. To horizontal and vertical lines.

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Tableau 1938

Sirin: And pure colors. The primaries. Red, blue, yellow.

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Francesco: And yet.

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Sirin: And yet?

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Francesco: Antoni Gaudi.

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Sirin: Yes. There are no straight lines in nature.

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Francesco: So there we are.

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Voice-over

Mondrian went from the curved lines of nature to reducing them to straight lines.

Gaudi went from the straight lines of architecture to embellishing structures with curves.

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Who gridded New York?

Over a Grolsch on Veedenburgerbrugstraatje…

Jan: We Dutch are a rational people. We settled New York. We gave it a logical street layout.

Beatrice: Ja, New Amsterdam or now Lower Manhattan, was originally Dutch. It looks just like the grid in Amsterdam. A little irregular, but north of 14^th Street the grid is as regular as a Mondrian.

Jan: What happened north of 14^th?

Beatrice: City commissioners created a more aggressive grid plan in 1811. Morris, DeWitt and Rutherford.

Jan: Why did they do that?

Beatrice: For real estate profits. Rectangular lots are cheaper to build on. Developers could build quicker and more cheaply.

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Mondrian, New York City II, 1942-44

Voice-over

Dutch artist Piet Mondrian was creating grid compositions in Amsterdam before emigrating to New York in 1940. Is gridding a Dutch thing?

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