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In his Cubist phase, Mondrian painted Parisian rooftops, cathedrals and other urban, manmade forms. Later, influenced by the incredible metropolis of New York City, Mondrian's "Abstract-Real" or "New Plastic" paintings became emblems of urban, abstract life. As mankind evolved from the natural to the spiritual, the city became his ideal world.
Architecture, then, occupied an increasing proportion of Mondrian's attention, with its "mathematical-aesthetic expression of relationships" (72). To Mondrian, architecture surpassed the naturalism of painting and sculpture, but it was not the ideal art, for Mondrian felt that by having three dimensions, architecture impaired the perception of relationships, and the latter is what would reveal the universal. |
Two dimensions were the ideal way of expressing the binary oppositions; architecture must become planar if it were to succeed. In addition, architecture presupposed enclosure; this can be contrasted with the open forms of Mondrian's most minimal New Plastic compositions. And architecture was tied to the use of materials; painting, at least, could attempt to transcend its own form by using pure color fields and solid lines.
In this respect, perhaps Mondrian would have embraced computers, since they are ignorant of materials. Given, they are currently constrained by the frame of the screen; but their media are pure light, and potentially, pure sounds. In addition, we see computers merging with architecture, as manmade spaces become more abstract, complex information spaces. |