Pete Mondrian

Pete Mondrian's work is the epitome of the kind of art that frustrated me as a child. His straight lines and blocks of color bored me, and I always thought--anyone can do that. I must say that I still retain some of that mentality now, but I can appreciate the importance of such pieces to art itself, and recognize some of the visual tools that Mondrian manipulates that give this piece more meaning. He organizes his lines in a strict grid, with the colors barely visible on the fringes of the piece, evoking a sense of balance and continuation beyond what we see in this particular view. I feel as if I am looking at a gap, at the bare scaffolding of some structure, and it makes me think about how I visually interpret empitness and neutrality (in black and white, in rectangles, in symmetry...).