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The Place of "Composition 12 with Small
Blue Square" in the Art of Piet Mondrian
by Robert Welsh
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For the period circa 1909-1911 this influence is most thoroughly
documented in the veritable Theosophic testimonial piece, the Evolution
triptych. (6) The Church at Domburg, by analogy of style, may be
thought equally imbued with implications of mystical content, intended
to lead the viewer in a tandem of religious and aesthetic experience
from the mundane level of observed reality to the so-called "higher spheres"
of clairvoyant initiation. Thus, while it remains uncertain to what extent
Mondrian felt himself to be the recipient of clairvoyant visions when painting
such works as these, his figural subjects of the period appear as if
transported to some higher level of occult experience.
Church monuments, especially if, as was the local Domburg example, in less
than a perfect state of preservation, like flowers, number prominently
among those "centres of spiritual force" which Theosophic initiates are
advised to contemplate as a means of producing visionary thought-images
of the so-called astral world. As the then still Theosophist Rudolph Steiner
explained it, devotional concentration upon such objects pertaining to
the "soul-world," would produce, in properly attuned sensibilities, transformations
of natural appearance which are chiefly characterized by purification of the observed colours
into radiantly luminous hues, and of the form into progressively simplified
shapes. Indeed, throughout Theosophic literature, elementary geometric
forms, such as squares, triangles, circles, ovals, and crosses are treated
as emblematic of the most fundamental and universal spiritual truths.
It is within this rarified religious context that the
essential aspects of colour and form found in the Church at Domburg
are to be explained, even if, as stated above, an accurate perception
of the natural world does not vanish completely before the power of super-sensory
vision. In similar fashion, the remarkable reduction of the total
imagery to a virtually two-dimensional principle of composition seems
no less reflective of the innate design sense which had informed the House
on the Gein than a distillation of artistic, art theoretical, and spiritualist
doctrines derived from outside sources. To a larger degree than generally
realized, the fundamental principles of Mondrian's later abstract oeuvre
were already stated in his ultimate production of the pre-Paris years
in Amsterdam.
It must not be thought that the intertwining of occult
religious precepts and his work as a painter ceased when Mondrian arrived
in Paris. His sketch-book annotations of approximately the period 1912-1914
are replete with Theosophic jargon, and the male-female duality associated
respectively with vertical and horizontal lines was principally derived
from this same source. (7) Even Picasso, whom Mondrian repeatedly credited
with having exerted a profound influence upon himself, and whom the Dutch
artist would have known not to be Theosophically inclined, was nonetheless
credited with having furthered, albeit unconsciously, the same historical
process of spiritual evolution which is the declared task of Theosophy.
Rather than appearing as a secular challenge in art to spiritualist
preoccupations, Cubism to Mondrian as a justification
offering a fruitful means of realizing such ideas in a contemporary
artistic style. After all, had not Cubism accomplished more than any previous
art movement since the Renaissance in de-emphasizing both literary subject
matter and the normal appearance of maternal reality? If such an association
between Cubism and pan-spiritualism would seem, by objective standards,
to be a forced marriage at best, its tenacious grip on the mind of Mondrian
contributed in no lesser measure to the evolution of his own art towards
ever greater degrees of anti-naturalism and abstract canons of style.
Concurrently, incorporation of spiritualist ideas in his art
assumed a quite individual form which had more significant consequences
for the history of art than for the Theosophic movement. In Paris, the
artist reduced his subject preferences to an all but exclusive reliance,
first upon trees, and then upon building façades, neither motif
being more than barely recognizable
as such. (8) By these means, simultaneously preserved subject predispositions
reaching back to his early naturalistic period, and yet gainsayed any
possibility that standard Theosophic doctrines might be comprehensibly
illustrated. As a consequence of this tendency towards iconographic camouflage,
a large proportion of Mondrian's Cubist paintings were for many years thought
to be relatively pure abstract configurations of line and colour. Only
by reference to the more easily decipherable preliminary drawings which
survive has it been possible in recent years to discover the actual sites
of a number of architectural and other motifs which served as a basis for
his "compositions" - as, beginning circa 1912, he preferred to label
his paintings.
With the tree themes the issue is particularly complex. Along
with verbal reports and sketch book evidence of his having executed drawings
of trees in situ while in Paris, certain major paintings, such as
The Flowering Appletree (fig. 4), clearly derive ultimately
from earlier subject treatments, in this case the isolated motif employed in the "blue
tree" series of circa 1909. (9) Given the fluid character of the web
of linear patterns and brushstroke in-filling, the extreme painterliness
of Mondrian's approach would, at first glance, seem at odds with the tendency
towards geometrizing design found in the Church at Domburg from
a year or two earlier. On closer examination, however, a deft combination
of spiraling branch configurations, and opposing abstract linear and colour
contrasts, grant this composition definite structural stability despite
the coruscating movement of its surface patterns. The radiating sweep of
lines, which, especially at the top and sides, imply projection beyond
the actual picture plane, constitute a centrifugal force held in check
only by those fewer convolutions of line which constitute a centripetal
force, and by the knotted massing of darker colouration at the centre.
Finally, within this vortex, one senses an underlying grid of vertical
and horizontal line segments, a central cross-motif formed by the bisecting
picture axes. Perhaps one even senses the implication
of a lozenge, if the points of the cross are felt to be connected, albeit,
in our example, with sides bent inward, in keeping with the overall curvilinear
character of the design.
This latter aspect of the painting doubtless suffices to classify it as
dominantly female in theme, as does also the greater emphasis upon the
horizontal interlace of branches. At this time, the iconographic combination
of largely curved lines and dominance of the horizontal axis signified
for Mondrian the female, or material, principle, although it should be
remembered that the presence of this force was thought to be as necessary
as the vertical-spiritual entity for the preservation of universal harmony,
that is to say, according to the artist's Theosophically inspired convictions.
With this in mind, it is possible to interpret The Flowering Appletree
as both an iconographic antipode to, and yet a striking compositional
precedent for, Composition 12.
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