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Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray

A square white tile, rotated 90 degrees, crossed by black lines intersecting at 90-degree angles. A few of the shapes thus formed—some partial squares, some rectangles—are colored in a single shade of yellow, blue, black, or red.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A square white tile, rotated 90 degrees, crossed by black lines intersecting at 90-degree angles. A few of the shapes thus formed—some partial squares, some rectangles—are colored in a single shade of yellow, blue, black, or red.

Date:

1921

Artist:

Piet Mondrian
Dutch, 1872–1944

About this artwork

Although Piet Mondrian’s abstractions may seem far removed from nature, his basic vision was rooted in landscape, especially the flat geography of his native Holland. Beginning with his early naturalistic landscapes, he reduced natural forms to their simplest linear and colored equivalents to suggest their unity and order. Eventually he eliminated such forms altogether, developing a pure visual language of verticals, horizontals, and primary colors that he believed expressed universal forces.

In Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray Mondrian rotated a square canvas to create a dynamic relationship between the rectilinear composition and the diagonal lines of the edges of the canvas. Deceptively simple, his works are the result of constant adjustment to achieve absolute balance and harmony, and they reveal an exacting attention to the subtle relations between lines, shapes, and colors. The artist hoped that his paintings would point the way to a utopian future. This goal was first formulated in Holland around 1916–17 by Mondrian and a small group of like-minded artists and architects who collectively referred to their aesthetic as De Stijl (The Style). Their ideas have been extraordinarily influential for all aspects of modern design, from architecture and fashion to household objects.

Status

On View, Gallery 393

Department

Modern Art

Artist

Piet Mondrian

Title

Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray

Place

Netherlands (Artist's nationality)

Date

1921

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Signed, l.c.: "PM/21"

Dimensions

60 × 60 cm (23 5/8 × 23 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.

Reference Number

1957.307

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/109819/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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