Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944)
Place de la Concorde, 1938–1943
Oil on canvas
37 x 37 3/16 in. (93.98 x 94.46 cm)
Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the James H. and Lillian Clark Foundation, 1982.22.FA
© 2004 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust, c/o hcr@hcrinternational.com

Piet Mondrian’s Place de la Concorde is a masterwork of the artist’s mature style, a completely nonrepresentational art which he called neoplasticism. He established a dynamic balance between a system of horizontal and vertical black stripes, and yellow, red, and blue rectangular blocks of color. The black lines and the areas they enclose are not standardized; each is carefully modulated with subtle differences in density and width. This linear network, neither rigid nor static, constitutes an animated and energetic pattern with irregular sequences. The way in which a line stops or addresses either adjacent lines or the edges of the composition is especially charged.

Even with its geometric simplicity and balance, the composition seems to pulsate with the energy of the city it celebrates. It is eloquent testimony to Mondrian’s enduring idealistic faith in the expressive power of a radically reduced vocabulary of vertical and horizontal lines, primary colors, and planes. Consistent with the neoplastic aesthetic he had developed in the 1920s, this painting is remote from any notion of realistic reproduction. It is a mode of expression that transcends particular or individual emotions.