Artwork
Tableau I: Lozenge with Four Lines and Gray
Tableau I: Lozenge with Four Lines and Gray is an oil painting by the De Stijl artist Piet Mondrian. It dates from 1926 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
About this work
Overview
The composition relies on stark contrasts and precise geometry, embodying the restrained visual language that Mondrian pursued during his De Stijl period.
Created in 1926, this oil painting by Piet Mondrian presents a diamond‑shaped field bounded by a thin black contour. Within the diamond, four evenly spaced black lines intersect to form a central square, while muted gray rectangles fill the surrounding spaces. The composition relies on stark contrasts and precise geometry, embodying the restrained visual language that Mondrian pursued during his De Stijl period.
Subject & Meaning
The work reduces visual content to basic elements, line, plane, and color, seeking a universal visual order. By arranging black lines and gray fields within a lozenge, Mondrian explores balance and equilibrium, suggesting an abstracted space where harmony arises from the interaction of simple forms rather than representational content.
Technique & Style
Executed in oil on canvas, the piece employs a limited palette of black, gray, and white, applied with flat, uniform brushstrokes that eliminate texture. The precision of the intersecting lines and the crisp edges of the geometric shapes reflect Mondrian’s commitment to a non‑representational aesthetic, characteristic of De Stijl’s emphasis on purity of form and reduction of visual elements.
History & Provenance
The painting belongs to the later phase of Mondrian’s career, when he had fully abandoned figurative motifs in favor of pure abstraction. Produced shortly after his involvement with the De Stijl journal, the work exemplifies his theoretical writings on neoplasticism. It has remained in private collections before entering a public museum’s holdings in the mid‑20th century.
Artist & collection
Artist
Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (Dutch:; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), known after 1911 as Piet Mondrian (, US also; Dutch: ), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician, who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.
