Composition with black, red, grey, yellow and blue

This rare 1920s gouache by Piet Mondrian dispels the commonly held notion that his abstract, geometric compositions were mechanically produced or based on mathematical formulae. The artwork's many revisions, including the outer dark grey band partially covering the red in the upper right-hand corner, reveal his complicated process of trial and error as he struggled to create relationships of equilibrium between thick, black lines and rectangles of neutral and primary colours. Because they visually balance one another, the carefully calibrated rectangles of red, yellow and blue do not seem to drift towards or away from the centre, but instead hover in suspension at the edges of the composition. Such relations of harmony and equilibrium in abstract art create what Mondrian called an ‘exact order’, which for him elevates human consciousness by offering access to the ‘true unity’ lying outside the flawed world of everyday appearances.

− 2024

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