Auto-Mondrian
A digital auto-Mondrian image is an Expressionist style work of art.
Colour, Structure And Symbolism
The Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) began his career as a talented academic painter. Soon, however, his landscapes depicting the Dutch countryside became suffused with subtle overtones of uniquely original linear patterns, effects of light, and gradations of colour:
- Windmill in Sunlight (1908). The mill, the technical features of which includimg the "cartwheel" are visible, appears against the light painted by several superimpositions of paintbrushes. The sky is variously blue and yellow (under the sun).
- Dune Landscape.
- Church near Domburg.
- Windmill at Domburg better known as The Red Mill (1910-1911).
- The Red Tree (1908), belongs to a series of paintings with trees. The red colour of the stem, the violet and red of the branches, and the blue of the background, which allowed Mondrian to create a sense of space, without using the traditional elements of the perspective.
Mondrian's interest in light-dark contrasts matched that of the Symbolists, as did his search for patterns in nature. Around the time of his move Paris Mondrian progressively abstracted floral motifs.
- Grey Tree (1911)
- Flowering Apple Tree (1912). The blooming apple tree depicts the significant structure of the represented object.
The Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag in the Netherlands has an important Mondrian collection including many of his early works. Influenced by the Symbolist painters and limiting himself to the use of primary colours, his paintings of trees, sand dunes, church towers, and windmills became progressively more refined until he had ultimately distilled their contours and planes into colours separated by horizontal and vertical black lines.
Piet Mondrian Timeline
- 6 October to 5 November 1911 - Mondrian attended the Moderne Kunstkring (Modern Art Circle) exhibition in Amsterdam. The work of the French painter, Georges Braque (1882-1963), encouraged him towards finishing with representational painting and instead make use of geometric shapes in his work.
- 1912 - The artist moved to Paris, and changed his name (dropping an "a" from Mondriaan) to emphasize his departure from life in the artistic backwater of Holland. The influence of the Cubism of Braque appeared almost immediately in his work.
- 1917 - Mondrian and the Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg founded de Stijl magazine, in which Mondrian developed his theories of a new art form Neoplasticism.
How to make an Auto-Mondrian image
- The workspace is divided into a grid using 10x10 size squares. This simplifies the art form, but also simplifies the code. The placing of the colour blocks is achieved by looping through code that randomly places them in the grid.
- The next stage required is to define some colours to use for painting. In accordance with the Mondrian original use blue, red, yellow, and black for the lines. The block filling colours are entered into an array for easier use later on, with white for setting the background.
- Finally set the line thickness, paint the canvas white, and define the number of blocks that will be filled in the final image. This is done by generating a random integer.
