Piet Mondrian - Neo Plasticism

Piet Mondrian - "Curves are so Emotional"

Piet Mondrian was born in the city of Amersfoort, Netherlands as Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan. He was originally a teacher who also dabbled in painting. Most of his paintings are oil on canvas.

Row of Eleven Poplars in Red, Yellow, Blue and Green, 1908

In his early years (around 1895 -1908) Piet Mondrian painted naturalistic landscapes or impressionistic still life. Naturalistic paintings are paintings of realistic objects in a natural setting while impressionist paintings consist of short broken brushstrokes not smoothly blended together.

Avond (Evening) The Red Tree, 1908-10, Luminist Modernist

Sometime during 1908, Mondriaan was attracted to spiritual studies, especially the ‘Theosophical Movement’. He blended his newfound spiritualism with his paintings in an abstract Luminist style. Luminist works are paintings of landscapes with lighting effects and hidden brushstrokes.

DuinLandschap (Dune Landscape), 1910-11, Cubist

During 1911, he became influenced by Cubism, which was a leading art trend made popular by artists of the time such as Picasso and Braque. The next year, he moved to Paris and dropped an ‘a’ from his surname, changing it to Mondrian. He gave up representational art and signed all his later works as ‘Mondrian’.

Composition, around 1914-15

When he visited his home in the Netherlands in 1914, the First World War broke out which postponed his departure. Here he was taken up by the use of the three primary colours – red, blue and yellow and formed a new artistic theory called Neo Plasticism. This form of art consisted of horizontal and vertical lines with a few spaces in between filled with primary colors. When he returned to France, after the war ended in 1919, he began creating his ‘grid’ paintings. This form of pure abstraction continued throughout his life.

Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray, 1921

Another penchant of Mondrian was to create ‘lozenge’ paintings. These lozenges were square canvases tilted at an angle so that they hung in a diamond shape.

Broadway Boogie-Woogie, 1942 - 43

At the start of the Second World War, Piet Mondrian left Paris for London and later New York. Here he began a new form of painting which was a complex lattice of interlacing red, blue and yellow lines. ‘Broadway Boogie-Woogie’ is one such abstract geometric painting that seems to be inspired by the cheery music of the time. Piet Mondrian died of pneumonia in New York City in 1944. Mondrian’s ‘Neoplastic’ style continues to be used in the advertising, design, graphics, fashion and art fields today.

List of some more Mondrian paintings.

Hieronymus Bosch - God is Watching

Hieronymus Bosch - Late Gothic Artist

Hieronymus Bosch is another painter whose paintings I find interesting. Here is a short introduction about him and details about some of his work which I particularly like.

Hieronymus Bosch was a 15th century artist whose work is characterized as Late Gothic. He is also known as a medieval surrealist. Coming from a family of artists, this Early Netherlandish painter was born in around 1450 in the town of Hertogenbosch, Netherlands (Holland). He was originally named Jheronimus (or Jeroen) van Aken but changed it later to Bosch (pronounced Boss) to reflect his hometown. At the age of around 30, he married Aleyt Goyaerts van den Meerveen, a wealthy woman who was a few years older than him. Around 8 years later, he joined a conservative religious group known as the Brotherhood of Our Lady. Most of his paintings are religious in nature.

Hieronymus Bosch is known for making several triptychs or works with three paintings on wooden panels that are attached to each other. Technically, he painted in a style known as ‘alla prima’, a painting technique in which pigments are laid on in one application with little or no underpainting. Most of his works include images of demons, half-human animals and machines which depict sin, evil and human moral failings. Many accept that the paintings of Bosch were created to teach specific moral and spiritual truths and that each image has an exact meaning.

The Garden of Earthly Delights.

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is an oil painting on wood panels. This triptych depicts paradise and creation of man on the left panel, earth in the middle and hell on the right panel. It was painted in around 1504.

The Last Judgement

This is another triptych or three panelled painting by Hieronymus Bosch. The outside of the shutters is Grisaille on panel, while the inside shutters and centre are oil on panel. The painting depicts ‘Judgement Day’ as mentioned in the Bible – a day when God will descend to the earth.

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

This painting of oil on wood panels is in the form of a tabletop. The four small circles show pictures of death, judgement, hell and glory. The seven deadly sins are depicted in the central circle starting clockwise from wrath at the bottom to envy, greed, gluttony, sloth, lust and pride. The writing at the bottom is Latin for ‘Beware, Beware, God is Watching’.

Hieronymus Bosch died in 1516. As Bosch never dated any of his paintings and signed only seven of them, there is considerable speculation on the amount of works painted by him. Today, art scholars have definitively ascribed only around 25 paintings to him.

Do you have any favourite artist or any artwork you happen to admire?

Cars and Bikes at Auto Expo 2008

Auto Expo 2008 – Vehicles I liked

This Saturday, I visited the 9th Auto Expo 2008 at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. Held in the month of January, once every two years, this event is the earliest opportunity for Delhi’ites to view the latest models of cars and bikes before they are launched in the market. Here is a list of some cars and bikes, which caught my attention.

General Motors Cadillac CTS

General Motors Cadillac CTS – This dark red saloon is so ultracool. It was first seen in the Matrix Reloaded movie. The Cadillac CTS was launched in 2007 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, USA. It has GM’s new 3.6-litre direct-injection V-6 VVT engine. No idea about the price.

Volvo C70

Volvo C70 – I liked this red sports car a lot. This car has a three-piece retractable hardtop that transforms the automobile from coupe to convertible on the press of a button. It should be available in the market later on in the year and is expected to cost around Rs. 42 – 44 lakhs.

Hyundai QarmaQ

Hyundai QarmaQ – This concept car from Hyundai looked real sexy. The Hyundai QarmaQ has many new safety and environmentally friendly features like a pedestrian safety system. This system absorbs crash energy in the event of a collision with a person and is useful in India where jaywalking is a common occurrence. Part of the body of the QarmaQ is made out of recycled plastic bottles.

BMW M3 Coupe

BMW M3 – This white coupe comes at almost double the price of the Volvo convertible at Rs. 74 lakh. The convertible has a 4.0 litre V8 engine that propels the car to 100 kph in 4.8 seconds with a restricted top-speed of 250 kph. Wish I were filthy rich!!

Triumph Rocket III Classic from UK

Triumph Rocket III Classic from UK – This motorcycle was clearly the most handsome bike at the Auto Expo 2008. It was displayed in a relatively empty hall with engine parts and other accessories. Best of all, the hostesses were allowing people to get close to the motorbike and take photos. Wish I could take a ride on this bike with Salman Khan!! Ha Ha!!

Yamaha Super Sports 2008 YZF – R15

Yamaha Super Sports 2008 YZF – R15 – This bike had a huge crowd surrounding it. The Yamaha YZF R15 has a 150cc liquid cooled 4 stroke single 4 valve fuel injected engine which is environmentally friendly. It looked sexy but was not as grand as the Triumph.

Suzuki Motorcycles’ Hayabusa

Suzuki Motorcycles’ Hayabusa – First seen in the movie Dhoom, the 1,340-cc one seater Hayabusa will be imported in India towards the end of July. Though the bike is available in the international market for only Rs. 4 lakhs, in India, it will cost Rs.8 lakhs because of import duties. With a wide wheelbase of 1,485 mm, the Hayabusa motorcycle offers great speed along with good maneuverability over sharp turns.

There were many other foreign car manufacturers like Audi, Mercedes, Kawasaki, Honda and Skoda at the Auto Expo 2008, but I didn't like those cars or bikes as much as I liked the ones mentioned above. Hope you enjoyed the pictures and photos I put up!!

Did you visit the Auto Expo 2008? Which car or motorbike did you fancy?

Aaja Nachle – Movie Review

Aaja Nachle – Movie Review – 3/10 - starring Madhuri Dixit in her comeback film, Akshaye Khanna, Kunal Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Ranvir Shorey and Vinay Pathak.

A very boring and unglamorous film, Aaja Nachle simply fails to spread the ‘enthusiasm’ of the protagonist (Madhuri Dixit) to the audience. The story is about a small town dance student who marries a foreigner and migrates abroad. When her ‘guru’ dies, she returns to India to resurrect her old dance school from the ruins and save it from being turned into a mall. To do this, she is asked by the MP (Akshaye Khanna) to put up a full-fledged dance drama starring the locals at short notice. The challenge lies in selecting the right people, training them and dealing with local opposition to make the dance drama a success.

Seems good enough, but here are the irritating bits of Aaja Nachle. A few excesses, such as the sets, costumes and background dancers of the ‘dance drama’, which had no sponsors may be forgiven, but not these holes -

- Madhuri ends up being a divorcee and is treated by the villagers with disdain. If the moviemakers didn’t want a ‘firang’ husband in the scene, why couldn’t they have made her a widow or a person with a very ‘busy’ husband? It just sort of makes the villagers seem right in distancing themselves from her. After all, they warned her about the ‘stereotype’ that all firangs are ‘bad’.

- The ‘guru’ ends up being more of a sadhu than a dance teacher. Instead of displaying some traditional dance moves, all he does is smile benignly and wave his arms about as his young girl students’ dance. That too without any gracefulness!!

- Madhuri ends up choosing the most unsuitable locals for the main cast of her drama ‘Laila Majnu’. Kunal Kapoor is a local stumbling goon and Konkona is downright ugly. Awful casting by the directors. You don’t need to cast dowdy second rate stars just to make Madhuri look good!!

- Dance steps and scenes that Madhuri is shown teaching her students are not there in the final drama shown at the end of Aja Nacchle.

Other than this - Story and script left a lot to be desired. Choreography was boring – Saroj Khan would have done it better. The songs of Aaja Nacchle were reasonably good but the setting was very plain and ordinary.

Did you watch this film?? What do you think of my movie review of Aaja Nachle?

Happy New Year 2008

Happy New Year 2008

Wishing everyone a joyous, peaceful and prosperous 2008 !!! May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions !!

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other. Did you make any this year ??