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Van Gogh:
"Bedroom of the Artist, in Arles," Vincent Gogh National Museum, Amsterdam
Mondrian:
"Composition in Black and Blue,"(1926), Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Coll. A.E.
Gallatin
Photo of Mondrian, 1944 (Mondrian by
Hans L.S. Jaffe, Abrams) |
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Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), with Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and Kasimir Malevich
(1878-1935), was one of the pioneers of abstract art and the greatest painter of
twentieth-century geometrical abstraction.
"His dedication and purity
of vision have become legendary; the sequence of his works in a mature career of some 35
years constitutes the most scrupulous evolutionary progression, within the tightest
margins of trial and error, of probably any Western artist in the history of painting. His aims were lofty and spiritual: he fought
constantly against materialism, and he was determined that the world would benefit from
the creation of purely abstract environments." (Waldemar
Januszczak, Maray Beal, and Edwin Bowes, Techniques of the Great Masters of Art, Chartwell
Books, 1985.)
Chen has changed the Van Gogh
icons that he retained in the bedroom scene to pure colors Mondrian used so effectively,
and he has added to the composition various Mondrian icons and a photo of the artist.
Mondrian's career began in
Holland and ended in America, where, because his theories could not be restricted to easel
painting, his influence on commercial art was profound.
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