About Mondrian's Self-Portraits（モンドリアンの自画像について）
About Mondrian's Self-Portraits, 2009
The emergence of abstract painting is what clearly distinguishes 20th century painting from previous paintings. And when it comes to the pioneers who opened the door to this new creativity, I would say Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944, Dutch).
When I was in junior high school, I was fascinated by Mondrian and I used to study the golden ratio and paint practical works using pure colors. To put it analytically in retrospect, I had left my parents and family and was living a lonely life, so I felt anxious inside, but due to my inherent optimistic nature, I found it difficult to come to terms with it. I think Mondrian's geometric works made me feel something refreshing, pure, and stable. It was true that I had a penchant for geometry. Or rather, it might be more accurate to say that Mondrian's works made me realize that I had such a penchant.
Anyway, my fascination with Mondrian's work continued into high school, and I finally designed a knitted sweater for myself and asked my mother to knit it for me. The design was black, with red rectangles about 1cm wide in stripes on one side of the V-neck collar and on the other side of the waist opposite the collar. It was a simple design, but I was adamant that the rectangles be knitted neatly without any mess, so my mother seemed to have a lot of trouble finishing it. I wore it over a starched white shirt and was very proud of myself. About 10 years ago, during the major cleanup when we moved to our current home, I came across that 40-year-old sweater, and have been storing it in a paper bag as one of my past works.
I've strayed from the point. Let's get back to the point.
However, none of the three pioneers of abstract painting mentioned above aimed to create abstract paintings from the beginning. While painting naturalistic images of familiar objects, they probably became acutely aware of the "demands of the times" and gradually began to deconstruct their subjects. I do not intend to discuss here how abstract paintings were created and established within art history, or within the history of individual painters. It is not my role.
What I am about to discuss is a speculation. I will start by stating what I have noticed about Mondrian's self-portraits.
First, I will show three works. All of them are Self-Portraits ( Zelfportret) painted by Mondrian.
From the top, they are a work created around 1900, two works from 1911-12, and a work from 1918.
When he painted his first self-portrait, Mondrian's work was still realistic. Eventually, he began to explore the deconstruction of the subject. The subject was a tree, a flower, or himself.
The second and the third self-portraits are from that period.
Mondrian's deconstruction of the subject evolved further, and finally turned to geometric works with the golden ratio.
It may be argued whether this should be called the "evolution or deepening of deconstruction," or whether a completely different thought has entered. However, at a time when Mondrian's unique realm was beginning to blossom, his self-portrait is a rather orthodox figurative expression that somehow even retains traces of Fauvism. It is as if he has gone back to the beginning.
I am paying attention to these three trends in self-portraits.
Actually, although I did not go into detail, the first self-portrait is currently in the possession of The Phillips Collection in Washington DC, but what I would like to discuss is the support for this work.
A support is the material that holds the paint (pigments, paints, and other coloring materials) on which a painting is painted.
This self-portrait by Mondrian is painted with oil paints on canvas. However, the canvas is attached to something unexpected: stone.
Painting a self-portrait on a canvas that is attached to stone must mean that the artist had some special intention. Doing something unusual means that a significant creative effort is already taking place. And it is hidden from the viewer.
What was Mondrian's intention here?
He then attempts to deconstruct himself, as shown in the example above. It is as if he is trying to break down his own face, by accumulating straight lines, to the very limit where his identity can be recognized, and extract only the elements. This method can be said to be similar to the Cubism of Braque and Picasso.
Then, five years later, while using the same oblique perspective as his previous work, he has abandoned the self-deconstruction. In the background is a wall made of a collection of rectangles that resemble a relief, and one can glimpse faintly the geometric world of Mondrian's work. However, the image of the self is, so to speak, a 20th century figurative work.
In this process, I feel as if I am finally beginning to understand Mondrian's intention in painting his self-portrait on a canvas attached to stone. A strong ego, a strong attachment to himself. The self as an entity that transcends the object to be deconstructed.
Perhaps he began to break down and divide himself, as if to sever such attachment to himself. Or perhaps he did so almost unconsciously. But he soon realized that he could not be broken down simply into "elements." This may have been painful. Perhaps he was unable to divide himself like the "world." Perhaps he thought that the self was more substantial than the "world." Or, to put it nastily, perhaps he became convinced that he was not an "ordinary person" as he became more important as an artist. This can be seen in the third example self-portrait.
In this third self-portrait, I see a self-consciousness that is common to Munch's later years. The painting is not dissimilar. The stubborn, sarcastic, confident and arrogant self-consciousness of a man who had fought against the world.
In the first self-portrait, we can still see a sensitive and timid side. Perhaps this is why he had to attach it to stone. The support of the stone is also the support of Mondrian's narcissism.
At the beginning, I mentioned Picasso as a pioneer of abstract painting. However, Picasso himself believed in "staying away from abstraction," and in fact, compared to Mondrian's geometric works, Picasso's works could not have been anything other than concrete.
Picasso painted his works, with clearly dated works written like a diary, and one could say that he trapped himself within his works and elevated them as artworks. However, when I recently glanced at Mondrian's works in line with the evolution of his self-portraits, I thought that perhaps he was ultimately unable to confine himself within the world of abstract painting that he created. I had never looked at Mondrian's works in this way before. This is because I had never attempted to trace his artistic career through his self-portraits, and because I had overlooked the fact that his early self-portraits were painted on canvases attached to stone. Furthermore, although I am not knowledgeable, I am not aware of any papers that discuss this fact.
So, for the time being, I would like to state my thoughts as a theory.
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