Piet Mondrain, Revisited

Tableau I
Piet Mondrain  1921

Absolutely gorgeous weather here in Washington today.  It started out inspiringly foggy and ended up beautifully warm and sunny.  Bill and I were out for a Sunday drive and hike through the gorge, and happened upon a fun antique/junk store in Carson, Washington.  I think it was called a Trading Post.  Maybe because I had just blogged about Mondrain, the colorfully arranged glass jars in their geometric boxes brought his images to mind.  So, here's my version of his later works, along with a reposting of Tableau I from yesterday.  I have to say, I don't know much about the development of his Neoplasticism style (beyond what I've read on Wiki), and I suppose he's just looking to achieve interesting balance, but I like to imagine that he has looked at a landscape scene and reduced it to rectangles, shades of white, and dominant primary colors. If this were the case, then I'd love to see a picture of what his abstract paintings are representing. That would be interesting to me!

Tree on the Columbia

Evening: Red Tree
Piet Mondrain.  1908-1010

Tableau I
Piet Mondrain 1921

I'm still working through the list of artists in my Artistic Photography class.  I'm not really sure I'm photographing "in the style of" Piet Mondrain (see below); so far I feel like I'm just trying to copy a painting, but I suppose it's a good place to start. Mondrain's Evening: Red Tree caught my eye, and something about my tree against the Columbia had a similar feel.  The tree painting is one of his earlier works.  He was around as cubism was taking hold, and later went on to develop a style he called Neoplasticism, which is represented here by Tableau I.  For me, the general feel of all those later paintings is the side of the Partridge Family bus.  I like his earlier stuff much better. He was still simmering a painting down to the few essential elements, but hadn't oversimplified yet.  I love the red color in his tree, and I'm disappointed in how mine looks next to the painting.  I think that color variation between warm and cold is possible with a photo; I especially see it when the sun, low in the sky, breaks through the clouds after a rain.  Then the subject is warmly illuminated and the background sky is rendered a cool dark blue by the camera.  My day on the Columbia was just your plain old overcast day. Overall though, I'm happy with the shape of this tree and how it fills the photo, and I'm especially happy with the variation in blue that the overcast Columbia provides.