Mondrian Painting Red Plane Yellow Black Gray Blue Espresso Cup

Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray, and Blue Piet Mondrian began to create the definitive abstract paintings in the 1920s for which he is best known for. He kept his palette limited to white, black, and gray in addition to the three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. His compositions constructed from thick, black horizontal and vertical lines that outline the various rectangles of color. This was the simplification of the pictorial elements, essential for Mondrian's creation of new abstract art. The assortment of blocks of color and lines differing in width creates a sense of rhythm that flows across the canvas, echoing that of modern life. This asymmetrical piece, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray, and Blue, originally painted in 1921 features one large dominant block of color, in this painting red, a common theme seen in his later works. This is balanced by the distribution of the smaller blocks of yellow, blue-gray, and white.