Piet Mondrian's "New York City I" -- 2001-2002 Cultural Literacy Class Forum

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 04:38:41 05/06/02 Mon
Author: Laura
Subject:

Piet Mondrian's "New York City I"

I have been reading all the posts on 20th century art, and it seems that a lot of people argue that it has no meaning--Piet Mondrian's works being most frequently mentioned. If one thinks of the use of conventional symbols as the only way to make a piece of artwork meaningful, then I agree that Piet Mondrian's paintings are simply dramatic. However, one must remember that Mondrian was a painter (and originator, I believe) of the nonobjective style, which our text book defines as "art without recognizable subject matter." Mondrian also came after the art style of social realism.

Now, I have no way of backing this statement up, but I believe that Mondrian combined the two art styles (social realism and nonobjectivism) in his painting "New York City I." The vertical lines could represent all of the tall buildings in NYC, and the horizontal lines serve to create a feeling of busy-ness, no doubt found as readily in 1942 as today. The qualities of the city are represented in the colors: the red hue passion, the yellow hue happiness, and blue hue tranquility.

But while Mondrian is praising the city, he is also condemning it. The ninety degree angles and use of only straight lines creates a rigid feeling. Perhaps he sensed that New York City during the 1940s was to concerned with societal rules and uptight standards, which hamper the passion, happiness, and tranquility that the city could otherwise offer. While this rigidness remained in the city, those qualities would be in a prison cell. And conveniently, if one looks at the painting from a short distance back, it begins to have a prison cell door look.

Again, I reiterate that I could find no information to back up my musings. Even the book offers a different look at the painting. What I wrote is simply what I see in the painting, in all its uncertainty and possible wrongness, in an attempt to show that NOT ALL modern art is meaningless. It simply takes patience to delve into the painting.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]