An analytic dance with Mondrian
The Piet Mondrian Conservation Project started by La Prairie in partnership with the Fondation Beyeler, Switzerland, just finished its first year. Yet it keeps yielding interesting tidbits about the artist and his work.
For instance, we learned in a recent online sessio
n with Fondation Beyeler chief conservator Markus Gross and art curator Ulf Küster, joined by La Prairie communications director Celia Bouvy, that the artist known for his modernist compositions was a fan of… the foxtrot.
“He had the image of being like a monk, but he was very social,” notes Küster. “He liked the foxtrot, the tango — he liked to dance. He connected the foxtrot to his paintings; he thought the display of colors connected to rhythm.”
Gross agrees the notion of dance and movement is reflected in the interplay of lines and colored boxes in Mondrian’s work. “We see a rhythm on the surface of the paintings. He plays with squares, the orientation of the brushstrokes.”
Last year the Fondation Beyeler acquired four key Mondrian works painted between 1921 and 1932 — “Tableau No. I,” “Composition with Yellow and Blue,” “Composition with Double Line and Blue” and “Lozenge Composition with Eight Lines and Red” — and began an in-depth examination to assess the condition of each and predict the impact of time and change on the paintings using technology-based methods like X-radiography, infrared reflectography, material analyses and high magnification.
All of this is in anticipation of a major comprehensive exhibition of the artist planned at Fondation Beyeler in 2022. With some 400 works, the Fondation has possibly the best Mondrian collection in the world; some 80 paintings will be shown.
La Prairie has been a main supporter of the Mondrian project, and for the art world, it’s yielded invaluable insights into this rather private artist and his methods. “He constantly revised his work,” notes Gross. Dating analysis proves Mondrian experimented, often for years, on his paintings. “He uses different types of pigments, colors, always correcting, shifting, trying to figure out the composition.”
“His real game is perfection,” says Küster. Perfection was an abstract goal, and Mondrian may not have achieved perfection, but he sought it through endless variations and refinements. The Dutch painter belonged to the De Stijl movement, which blended architectural ideas about line, composition and pure form in their canvases.
Küster notes the artist — surprisingly, perhaps — started out doing landscapes. “It’s interesting to see how he shifted from purity in nature to purity in his compositions.”
The palimpsest of Mondrian’s work revealed by technology shows the unfolding of time through his compositions, and a bit about his intentions.
Two key findings so far:
• Evolution. Rather than start a painting anew, Mondrian revised his paintings over and over in order to better capture new ideas and meet his own evolving standards of art. “Tableau No. 1,” for instance, revealed a visible signature dated “P M 21-25,” but further infrared reflectology reveals a third date under the top paint layer, indicating the painting was made as early as 1920. And Mondrian implemented the same compositional structure of “Composition with Yellow and Blue,” completed between 1930 and 1932, in three separate paintings. Overlaying the paintings in a digital image-processing program showed that placement, size and lines were repurposed, with fine adjustments resulting in three completely different effects.
• Intuition and precision in harmony. “Works by a master like Piet Mondrian hide a lot in the details,” said Gross. “A line is not simply a line; a color field is not a flat color field. There is much more behind it.”
Mondrian searched and worked out his ideas of color and line directly on the canvas, with evidence of wiping, scratching, and scraping of paint discovered by the conservation team. Infrared reflectology in the work “Tableau No. 1” shows a clear grid drawn with a ruler and pencil beneath the paint, where an obvious relationship between the composition and underlying grid emerges.
Further study of “Composition with Double Line and Blue” and “Tableau No. 1” also revealed that all lines are almost exactly even in width, and every angle is a perfect 90 degrees — an effect the conservators deemed very difficult to create freehand. Mondrian, in his drive to achieve perfect harmony in his paintings, possibly enlisted precise measuring tools to achieve this balance. That aspiration of the ideal aided by accuracy is at the very essence of La Prairie.
Presented by Rustan’s, the online session did manage to draw a connection between the luxury beauty brand and this most modern of artists. “As a luxury house, our biggest learning is the importance of sharing art with a larger public, and sharing knowledge about art conservation,” said Bouvy. “La Prairie’s search for timeless beauty through scientific breakthroughs follows a parallel purpose in art conservation. Mondrian, and his effect on minimalism, was highly inspiring to the brand.”
“One key takeaway is he was always looking for a sense of beauty, and being a beauty brand is not far away,” adds Küster. “So this project is a very good match.”
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La Prairie cosmetics are available exclusively at Rustan’s The Beauty Source. Visit laprairie.com and look at the Art Journal, or search hashtags #LaPrairieXFondationBeyeler, #TheArtJournal and #Mondrian to learn more about the Piet Mondrian Conservation Project.
