Mondrian Materials and Techniques
In his book on the Diamond Compositions, Carmean gives a detailed description of Mondrian's working methods, based on accounts by Seuphor (as published and in conversation with Carmean) and Charmion von Wiegand (in conversation with Trinkett Clark).
- The first thing to note is that Mondrian worked on the canvas horizontal on a table. This is clear from the photographs of PM in working clothes with horizontal streaks of paint. Carmean suggests that PM was the first painter to work in this way, although the horizontal method was adopted by subsequent abstract artists, notably Jackson Pollock's pourings.
- Mondrian worked on stretched and lightly primed canvases and thus knew the size and format of each design before he began.
- Each design was developed by moving long, thin strips of transparent paper around on the canvas and noting their chosen positions on the strips themselves. The composition was then transferred to the canvas using charcoal and a ruler. A period of revisions then followed, during which the canvas was placed on an easel to be viewed upright. The sizes and positions of the elements, the positions and widths of the lines were frequently changed, sometimes to the extent that "the canvas took on a grey tone" (Seuphor in conversation with Carmean). This can be seen from unfinished works such as B291.
- Carmean stresses that the design process was aesthetically intuitive rather than mathematical and quotes an anecdote from Seuphor. Vantongerloo once brought Mondrian a notebook with pages of calculations designed to show Mondrian's geometric systems. "This is very interesting", said Mondrian, "but it is not how I paint." Later in the book he quotes Charmion von Wiegand's conversation with Mondrian regarding the stylistic innovations in Broadway Boogie-Woogie [B323], "You should know that all my paintings were done first and the theory was derived from them. So, perhaps now we will have to change the theory"
- Once the design was complete, the black lines were the first to be painted, quite thinly so that the canvas was sometimes visible through the paint. Then the areas of white and colour, painted much thicker.
- Carmean draws attention to two aspects of PM's method. Firstly the difficulty Mondrian experienced and the effort he put into arriving at the design. Secondly, the paramount importance of the linear structure and therefore the relative insignificance of colour: Mondrian moved his strips of paper around the blank canvas but did not use rectangles of coloured paper in this process. He notes (from Welsh's writings) that on some occasions the colours were determined by the patron commissioning the painting.
- As documented by Carmean and others, Mondrian frequently undertook significant revisions to 'completed' works, adding, moving and removing lines and spaces.
Carmean also discusses the sketches which Mondrian drew in notebooks, on scraps of paper, and on cigarette packets. The symbols PM uses are:
- H for haut, top, or
- bas, bottom
- R or rouge for red, but note that Mondrian's "R" is rather like an inverted "S", as shown in the small picture
- Bl denotes blue but bl is blanc, white.
- Gr for gris, grey
- J for jaune, yellow
There's an interesting piece on edges here, an article called How to Look at Mondrian by James Elkins.
On hanging, instructions on the back of B241 state that the centre should be no lower than eye level for a standing man, preferably with the bottom corner at eye level.
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