GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Piet Mondrian was inspired to create this painting by a specific windmill in the countryside near Amsterdam. Perhaps the unrelenting flatness of the Dutch landscape and the counterpoint of the simple vertical windmill led to his focus on horizontal and vertical forms as expressions of the essential structure of nature. Here Mondrian experiments with pointillism, a scientific aesthetic approach in which small dots of color are placed side by side in order to increase the overall sensation of light and color.
Adapted from
Dorothy Kosinski, DMA label copy, 2003.
NOTES
Created in 1908
Text entry added for 1997 catalogue.
Recently discovered contemporary photographs reveal that this painting apparently depicts a specific windmill in the countryside not far from Amsterdam, where Mondrian lived from 1892 to 1912. The painting demonstrates Mondrian's experimentation with a broad postimpressionist-inspired pointillist technique and also his manipulation of bright, non-descriptive colors. Another version of the subject (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague) is even more striking in its brilliant palette of primary colors and in fact caused a critical stir during the artist's 1909 retrospective in Amsterdam. The more subdued coloration of the Dallas version embraces a range of orange, green, and purple.
In these works, Mondrian discovered the essential pictorial vocabulary that would become the basis of his later abstract works: pure color is applied in individual patches, which here function like building blocks. Moreover, the imposing verticality of the windmill against the radiant, sky-dominated landscape must be understood within the process by which Mondrian extrapolated his radically reductive abstract vocabulary from the essential forms in nature. In studies of windmills, church facades, lighthouses, dunes, and trees, Mondrian discovered the eloquence of basic verticals and horizontals, which are expressive of stasis, of expansion, and of the vast and opposing forces of nature.
Dorothy Kosinski, "The Winkel Mill, Pointillist Version", in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Suzanne Kotz (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1997), 121.
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Depicted location: Amsterdam (Netherlands): TGN: 7006952
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FUN FACTS
- Another one of Mondrian's windmill paintings (1989.142), is also part of the Dallas Museum of Art's permanent collection.
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General Description
Piet Mondrian was inspired to create this painting by a specific windmill in the countryside near Amsterdam. Perhaps the unrelenting flatness of the Dutch landscape and the counterpoint of the simple vertical windmill led to his focus on horizontal and vertical forms as expressions of the essential structure of nature. Here Mondrian experiments with pointillism, a scientific aesthetic approach in which small dots of color are placed side by side in order to increase the overall sensation of light and color.
Adapted from
Dorothy Kosinski, DMA label copy, 2003.
Fun Facts
- Another one of Mondrian's windmill paintings (1989.142), is also part of the Dallas Museum of Art's permanent collection.
Archival Resources
Web Resources
Notes
Created in 1908
Text entry added for 1997 catalogue.
Recently discovered contemporary photographs reveal that this painting apparently depicts a specific windmill in the countryside not far from Amsterdam, where Mondrian lived from 1892 to 1912. The painting demonstrates Mondrian's experimentation with a broad postimpressionist-inspired pointillist technique and also his manipulation of bright, non-descriptive colors. Another version of the subject (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague) is even more striking in its brilliant palette of primary colors and in fact caused a critical stir during the artist's 1909 retrospective in Amsterdam. The more subdued coloration of the Dallas version embraces a range of orange, green, and purple.
In these works, Mondrian discovered the essential pictorial vocabulary that would become the basis of his later abstract works: pure color is applied in individual patches, which here function like building blocks. Moreover, the imposing verticality of the windmill against the radiant, sky-dominated landscape must be understood within the process by which Mondrian extrapolated his radically reductive abstract vocabulary from the essential forms in nature. In studies of windmills, church facades, lighthouses, dunes, and trees, Mondrian discovered the eloquence of basic verticals and horizontals, which are expressive of stasis, of expansion, and of the vast and opposing forces of nature.
Dorothy Kosinski, "The Winkel Mill, Pointillist Version", in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Suzanne Kotz (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1997), 121.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: Amsterdam (Netherlands): TGN: 7006952
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
rules
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