Oil Paint
Oil paint is a slow-drying paint made with pigment and a drying oil binder. It is widely used for artwork because it blends smoothly and develops rich color.
Painter
Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian was a Dutch abstract painter known for balanced compositions of straight black lines, rectangular color planes, and white space.
Piet Mondrian quick facts
Review Mondrian's shift from observed landscapes to geometric abstraction, his De Stijl ideas, and documented painting materials and supports.
| Born | March 7, 1872 · Amersfoort, Netherlands |
|---|---|
| Died | February 1, 1944 · New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Movements | De Stijl · Neo-Plasticism |
| Paint types | Oil paint · Watercolor |
| Painting surfaces | Canvas · Paper |
| Painting methods | Carefully planned horizontal and vertical divisions with flat areas of color; earlier watercolor studies of landscapes and plants |
| Common subjects | Early trees, flowers, waterways, and dunes; later grids, primary colors, and nonrepresentational compositions |
| Other media | Charcoal drawing, writing, and color studies |
| Notable works | Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray, Composition No. II, with Red and Blue, and Broadway Boogie Woogie |
Sources: MoMA: Piet Mondrian, MoMA: Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray, MoMA: Composition No. II, with Red and Blue, MoMA: Pier and Ocean 5, Kreeger Museum: Dying Sunflower, Watercolor.
Paint types used
Explore oil paint used in Mondrian's mature abstract canvases and watercolor used in earlier studies of flowers and landscapes.
Watercolor Paint
Watercolor paint is a water-based art medium made with pigment and a water-soluble binder. It is known for transparent color that settles into absorbent paper.
Surface types used
Explore the canvas of Mondrian's major oil paintings and the paper supports he used for watercolor and charcoal studies.
Canvas
Canvas is a woven fabric support used for paintings, banners, bags, décor, and other projects. Artist canvas may be raw, sized, acrylic-primed, oil-primed, or factory-coated, and each condition changes how paint absorbs and bonds.
Paper
Paper is an absorbent sheet material made primarily from cellulose fibers. Its weight, sizing, surface texture, and wet strength determine how much paint it can accept before buckling, pilling, bleeding, or warping.
Painters similar to Piet Mondrian
Explore painters linked to Mondrian through early Cubism, geometric abstraction, and later experiments with rhythm and optical form.
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian-born painter, teacher, and theorist known for abstract compositions exploring relationships among color, line, shape, and rhythm.
Bridget Riley
Bridget Riley is a British painter known for abstract compositions that create optical movement through repeated lines, curves, shapes, and structured color relationships.
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist whose long career moved through many styles and media, from the Blue and Rose periods to Cubism, classicism, Surrealism, sculpture, printmaking, and ceramics.