oa PIET MONDRIAAN OVER NEOPLASTISCH KUNSTONDERWIJS

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was not only a painter, but also a prolific writer. He wrote more than a hundred essays in Dutch, French, and English on the subject of art and society. In three unfinished essays, Mondrian sketches a different art education than was customary at the fine art academies during the interwar period. He describes an education that does not focus on creating discrete art objects, but on designing the entire daily environment. Mondrian’s intention was that graduates who had finished the training would give the society a harmoniously balanced structure, which would ultimately lead to more harmony and peace in man. He believed that a ‘Paradise on Earth’ would be no longer be a dream when all aspects of life were designed according to the neoplastic principles. In order to achieve this, students of Mondrian’s art education had to study the fundamental principles on which Mondrian based his neoplastic paintings. The present article investigates the principles of neoplastic composition as laid out in these three texts, which can help our understanding of the thought and method behind Mondrian’s Neo-Plasticism.