When I was ten years old, I attended an exhibition opening at the Wadsworth Atheneum. In Hartford, Connecticut, it is the oldest public art museum in America, a treasure house of great art ranging from seventeenth-century American furniture to a Caravaggio to major works by Picasso, Miró, and other modernists that were acquired when the paint was still fresh. My presence in the large gallery at ground level was obligatory; my mother had won a prize in the annual show of the Connecticut Watercolor Society.
After a few minutes which seemed interminable, I needed to escape. Shorter than the crowd of grown-ups who were babbling away while looking at mostly tame and academic watercolors, I detested the mushy, crustless tea sandwiches. I longed for crunch and texture, and action. I saw the curved white staircase that leads to the Atheneum’s permanent collection and asked my father if I could skedaddle.
Fifteen minutes later, I ran down, grabbed my father by the arm, and said, “Daddy, there is something upstairs I like as much as I like mountaintops and skiing! You have to come up.” He did, and I led him to my find. Looking at the simple compendium of black vertical and horizontal lines on a white background—one pure blue rectangle, way off center, being the only other element—my father said, “Very good, Nicky. That is by an artist called Mondrian. Mommy and I have a book about him at home if you want to look at it.”
We went downstairs together, and I felt invigorated by my discovery of new and fantastic territory. I consider my father the hero of the story. He was brought up by a poor glass cutter who had never been inside a museum. But Dad had become sufficiently sophisticated so that, in 1958, when my friends’ fathers would have said that any child could do such a painting, or even cuffed their sons for liking something so ridiculous, my father, a printer, had a particular regard for Mondrian, whose work had such an impact on graphic design. And from my mother he had acquired respect for the courage of artists to lead their lives independently and without the expectations of domesticity and fortune that governed the lives of most of their friends.
Love without excessive information or analysis is one of the greatest luxuries of youth. My profound sense of well-being in front of a painting by an abstract artist whose name or history meant nothing to me is the genesis of this book.
Then, in 2006, I was having a conversation with Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, a friend as well as an attentive reader of my biographies of Balthus and Le Corbusier. I asked him who remained among the modern masters about whom no biography had been written. He named Léger and Mondrian. I like Léger’s work a lot, but Mondrian’s name was magic to hear.
Over half a century later, after that initial thrill thanks to Composition (N° IV) White-Blue, I decided it would be wonderful to understand why a painting by Mondrian can alter one’s existence and intoxicate its viewer. To comprehend why the artist’s work has its impact and to know more about the man who developed this unique art are the goals of this book.
Having known people who were firsthand acquaintances of Mondrian, and having had access to copious information about the painter, I also feel a strong obligation to correct the errors that have already come to create his myth. Beyond that, with the excitement of seeing grandchildren start their lifetimes as I approach the end of my own, I want for them what I desire for everyone: the chance to savor the rich fortune of earthly existence as long as one has freedom and health and life’s necessities. This is Mondrian’s salient meaning for the world. Let beauty get inside you! Exult in sheer joy! Take risks, do it your own way, in order to taste the wonder of seeing. Understanding is secondary to emotion. Know that blue and white, and rhythm, are miracles.