Mondrian was the leading artist of the De Stijl (The Style) movement, a group of Dutch artists who produced strictly geometric, abstract art. Mondrian's early work painted from nature became increasingly abstract. For example a series of studies of trees and their branches made from 1909 to 1913 evolved into a criss-cross of lines. However it was when he became a member of the Theosophist group that he began to paint the grid paintings with which he is associated. Theosophists saw existence in terms of harmony between male and female, positive and negative, horizontal and vertical. Mondrian's paintings embody this sense of balance.
The term Degenerate Art ('Entarte Kunst' in German), was coined in the 1930s by the Nazis to ridicule modern art that did not fit with Hitler’s vision'. Confiscated by the German government, exhibitions of 'Degenerate' art took place in cities including Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig. In addition to this ridicule, the Nazi's banned artists branded with the term from exhibiting or holding teaching posts.
A loosely affiliated group of artists working in Paris in the early years of the twentieth century up to the Second World War.
Art in which there is no attempt to represent anything existing in the world, particularly used from the twentieth century onwards. ‘Abstraction’ refers to the process of making images that may in part derive from the visible world but which are reduced to basic formal elements.
The name of a Dutch art and design journal edited by Theo van Doesburg from 1917 to 1932 and the alliance of artists associated with it, including Piet Mondrian, Bart Van der Leck and Georges Vantongerloo. They were concerned with finding a harmonious balance in life and art through simple abstraction, characterised by strong horizontal and vertical lines and primary colours.