Mondrian: Compostion with Red, Yellow and Blue 1921

Reminiscent to the vertical and horizontal lines that create shapes in Lewitt's 'Six Geometric Figures', Mondrian's 'Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue' also utilizes black and white to create a linear structure.
Instead, within the limitations of the square canvass, Mondrian chooses a black line to measure out the image across a white background, not white across black as depicted within Lewitt's Wall Drawing.

While Lewitt uses the change in angle of line to differentiate shape within the image, Mondrian uses blocks of colour.


The red Square, slightly down and right to the centre of the painting has its vivid colour dampened by its black outline. Our eyes read that same red square, and then follow the black lines to the next part of the canvass, the memory of red still imprinted on out retina and visible from the corner of our eyes, meaning that even though the red paint is contained, it remains throbbing throughout the adjoining black lines and infringes on the pure whiteness of the canvass. It's continual effect is broken by the following blue and yellow squares within the composition.

To the very top left of the painting, a rectangular shape has been filled with a primary yellow colour. In opposition to the red square. There are only two sides outlined along the bottom of the square and the right side. Seemingly not incomplete, the square appears to fall off the canvass, implying that there is something continued or that will be continued.

Similar to the way the yellow square has been constructed, Mondrian supplies the viewer with another glimpse of red to the right of the canvass. It is much lower then its red square counterpart.
Without this slight of red, the left side of the canvass would be further emphasised. Mondrian utilises one square on either side of the grid; which, even in their slight fashion, create an unobvious balance

The trim of blue that creeps into the lower left part of the image remains to be the most inconspicuous part of the composition, because of it's closeness to the dark hues within the black lines and the contrast and green fusions between the yellow and the red shapes. I believe that this must be the reason for the way that Mondrian has chosen not to outline the top and bottom with the black outline. For, if it was completely surrounded, the blue pigmentation would drown within the walls of four thick black lines, and this element within the composition is needed to further add balance. The blue unifies all three primary colours and at the same, in the way all three colours bounce off each other they keep their individual characteristics.

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The colours red, yellow and blue are the most elementary colours. They are undoubtedly the purest. They remind me most of most childrens', pastel, felt tip or crayon drawings which are always bright and uncomplicated. Uncomplicated in the way that there is no knowledge of perspective, palette mixing, form, structure that plays part to these pictures, that would do to an older person.

Mondrian has used the grid as structure to compose his painting, he has utilised its implications as a drawing to create and image. A grid itself has its roots within painting, for example, the way that some artists will use the grid format to copy from another two dimensional picture, using the measurements of the squares to scale up or down. To plot accurately, by translating corresponding lines and colours within the original image.

'Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue' seems to encapsulate these basic rules of colour and drawing which connote a simplicity and flatness in imagery, yet within Mondrian's painting, there is a depth.

Colours can be mixed and manipulated, and shapes can be layered to create other dimensions; instead, Mondrian combines elementary colour and a basic grid to create an almost three dimensional structure.