Mondrian Dress

Essay

For the purpose of this essay, I will be writing about the way in which The Composition II by Pier Mondrian and the ‘Mondrian’ cocktail dress by Yves Saint Laurent compare to one another and how a demand for change at a point in time impacts both of these artworks as well as a relation to structure and architecture even though neither artist/designer is an architect. Yet in contrast to that I would also like to high light the way in which there aims differ.

Pier Mondrains earlier work was painting trees and landscapes and that was consistent throughout his career though his work became more abstract. The lines and colours in his painting Composition I represent the same idea of nature but are metaphors for the balancing of opposing forces: man and nature, individuality and society, He believed that art reflected the underlying spirituality of nature.
His work became more of a statement about dynamic equilibrium using simple line, geometric shape and primary colour, a minimalist approach. According to Richard R. Brettell (1999) Mondrian was the most consistent and important painter/theorist connected with geometric abstraction. Mondrian believed that it was time to move art on wanted to push past Cubism and create a new artist movement and strive for a progression in painting. Modernism is a style/movement in the arts that aimed to break with classical and traditional forms. Cubism By the likes of Picasso and Braques analysis of objects into geometric shapes developed into Mondrians austere canvases that uses straight line, right angle and primary colour. Hannah Höch on Piet Mondrian, quoted by Edouard Roditi,said that ‘Everything in his life was reasoned or calculated. He was a compulsive neurotic and could never bear to see anything disordered or untidy. He seemed to suffer acutely, for instance, if a table had not been laid with perfect symmetry’. You can see evidence of this in his artwork, Mondrians work has a particular layout and structure, and...