Around 1900 -1925 · Isolated flower, line, color and path to abstraction

Before and during the invention of neoplasticism, Mondrian painted isolated chrysanthemums, arums, roses and irises: the flower became a laboratory of contour, vertical tension and autonomous color.

Piet Mondrian's flower studies are surprising when we especially know his abstract grids. However, they belong to a long practice, particularly active at the beginning of the 20th century and continued as its geometric language became clearer. Chrysanthemum, iris, rose or arum are often isolated in front of a neutral background, sometimes placed in a glass. The framing removes the garden and focuses attention on the stem, the curvature of the leaves and the opening of the corolla. Some leaves are drawn with naturalistic finesse; other flowers use more autonomous colors, influenced by luminism, symbolism and the artist's theosophical research. These works also have an economic dimension: the floral motif sells more easily than radical experiments. However, it would be simplistic to see it only as commercial work or an abandoned stage. The vertical of the stem, the asymmetrical balance and the tension between form and content dialogue with Mondrian's future principles. Floral figuration and geometric abstraction thus coexist in a career less linear than its public image. The "Flowers of Piet Mondrian" selection thus compares Chrysanthemum and Red Gladioli in particular.

Mondrian's isolated flower does not mechanically announce the grid: it already reveals how a line, a color and a void can keep an entire painting in balance.