Ever walk through an art museum and wonder why some of those pieces where hanging on the wall?  Our teacher, Scott Chenoweth, explained a life-time mystery to me the week we had the Mondrian assignment and I am forever grateful. 

Mondrian (and the Mondrian immitator) is the fella who always left me a bit disgusted when I would see his work in a museum.  Anyone can put a red square on a white background, add a couple of lines, and call it art!  (Here are some Google images.) 

So just how do you get such an image in a major art museum or snapped up by Nike? I always assumed it had something to do with the politics of the art world.

Come to find out, it has more to do with math and geometry and every item in the picture being in perfect relational porportion than politics!  I won’t go into it here (some really techy info about him if you really wish to know), but I probably learned more in this particular 4 hours than any others up to this point. 

Assignment:

• Use Mondrian’s technique (with the proportional grid) to create your own version.

My Response:

• Just drawing it seemed really boring.  I thought up all sorts of ideas with a variety of color schemes and even ditched one idea of using lego blocks (too difficult to carry).  I finally decided to cut out my grid work through several layers of cardstock paper using Mondrian’s colors. (Hey! I am finally learning that as long as you meet the class requirements and take it at least one step beyond, then you are going to do ok!  No need to kill myself!)

Critique:  This does not show it well, since this is 3 dimensional, but the teacher liked it so much he passed it around the class and then a week later told me again that he really liked it!  I think I got an A on this one.  <g>  Go figure!

Mondrian in 3D (layers cut out to reveal the colors below)