I was lucky enough to have a packet of postcards of Mondrian's work - the
first thing I did was share them with the class as a whole - because there
was such a wide variety as a whole.... no intro - just look... then I told
them they were all by the same artist and we tried to put them in
chronological order - interesting activity - we were able to look at
influences and how the work evolved. Then we talked about what was most
recognizable as a Mondrian: primary colors, black lines (vertical and
horizontal)... then they had to 'evolve' from that.... change one attribute
- color, lines or vertical or horizontal to diagonal - then change two
If you were doing De Stijl in addition to Mondrian, you could take it to the
3-D and share architectural examples - Schroder House and Gerrit Rietveld...
On to sculptures.
This is from "The Usborne Introduction Understanding Modern Art" - little
De Stijl was founded in Holland in 1917.... Mondrian was best known for his
abstract paintings. Influenced by mystical philosophies, he believed that
there are two aspects to human nature - active and passive, male and female,
and so on. To express this in his art, he used horizontal and vertical
lines. He also used primary colors, because he thought that these, too,
symbolized the fundamentals of life.
Mondrian believed in the superiority of the horizontal and vertical to such
an extent that when other members of De Stijl introduced diagonal lines into
their work he left the movement in disgust. (An aside from me... he could
have tilted his head....or the frame.)