Mondrian paintings in pink or rose garden

Lot Agathe W. Zethraeus, Amsterdam.

The red mill painting

Acquired at the above sale by the late owner. II, p. C illustrated. Lot Essay By the abstract grid had become the foundation of Mondrian's pictorial style, and in that year the artist wrote the pamphlet Neo-Plasticisme to promulgate the goals of the Dutch Die Stijl movement. Mondrian found it difficult, however, to interest collectors of his earlier work in his most recent efforts.

Fortunately, Mondrian's Dutch dealer Simon Maris still had an eager market for the painter's early naturalistic works in Holland, especially his studies of flowers see Christies New York Day Sale, 5 May , lot Mondrian resumed painting flowers in the spring of , mainly roses, chrysanthemums, lilies and amaryllis, which he could sell for 30 or 40 florins apiece.

Composition no iv with red, blue, and yellow

In "Blown by the Wind," the final article he contributed to the journal Die Stijl in , Mondrian wrote, "The artist has few chances to earn money outside his field: if the buyers demand naturalistic art, then the artist can produce this with his skills, but distinct from his own work" reprinted in H. Holtzman and M. James, ed. Mondrian's treatment in the flower studies is naturalistic, but in their pale, ghostly tonalities, as well as their nebulous and timeless settings, these flowers possess Platonic and idealistic qualities that retain authentic overtones of the Symbolist milieu in which the artist first emerged as a modernist twenty years earlier.

Their appearance and symbolism also stem from Mondrian's involvement in Theosophy, a movement founded in the late 19th century by the American Helena Blavatsky, who advocated the synthesis of the world's great religions through the study of esoteric texts and the occult. Mondrian began to study Theosophy in and joined the Dutch chapter of the society in