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Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue

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Notice how the red, yellow and blue blocks all sit at the edges, pushed out toward the frame around one big white square.

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Mondrian came to use only straight horizontal and vertical lines, the three primary colors, and black and white. He believed that after the destruction of the First World War such a plain, shared visual language could help make a more harmonious society. The thin gray-painted strip of wood around the edge is his own frame, and the picture once belonged to J. J. P. Oud, an architect in the De Stijl group.

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oil on canvas · Framed: 62.2 x 62.6 x 10.8 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · De Stijl

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Details and source

Museum title
Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue
Artist
Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944)
Date
1927
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Framed: 62.2 x 62.6 x 10.8 cm (24 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 4 1/4 in.); Unframed: 49.5 x 49.5 cm (19 1/2 x 19 1/2 in.)
Credit line
Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art
Image license
CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record
Cleveland Museum of Art

Artist’s life 1872–1944

De Stijl c. 1917–1932

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue · Piet Mondrian, 1927
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Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, Piet Mondrian

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