Do you recognize this art? It is Piet Mondrian. Guess what it's made of though...tulips!
This 1.5 acre modern flower mosaic is part of the 2017 Tulip Route in the Netherlands and is best admired from above. Mondrian's work was chosen because the tulip fields are rectangles and his paintings are also obviously rectangles.
Mondrian
Piet Mondrian was born in the Netherlands in 1872. He was influenced by many artistic styles and even helped found an artistic movement called De Stijl (pronounced 'duh style'). He died in 1944, have created about 250 paintings in his lifetime.
The paintings that Piet Mondrian is most famous for are rectangles of white and primary colors, dissected by black lines. Mondrian's styles include Expressionism, Cubism, and De Stijl (now called neoplasticism).
De Stijl (sounds like ‘duh style’) was an artistic movement in the Netherlands from 1917 to around 1928. Artists such as Mondrian wanted to simplify the subjects of their painting as much as possible until they were left with only lines and simple colors. They used only red, yellow, and blue, and black, white, and grey.
De Stijl, also called neoplasticim, was named for the journal he and his friends started. The members of the De Stijl movement were searching to paint an even more honest truth than the cubists. They believed the essence, the foundation of all things could be found in the simplest form: straight lines and primary colors.
In this 1921 painting, entitled Composition, you can see the simple colors and lines. Notice how few black lines there are in this painting, yet how beautiful the effect.
These ideas were used not only in paintings, but in architecture as well. Look at this house, for instance, designed by Gerrit Rietveld. It is completely black and white with details in primary colors, and uses only rectangles formed by horizontal and vertical lines. The inside also uses simple lines. If you’ve ever seen a Frank Lloyd Wright designed building, you may be thinking that this house reminds you of his work. You’d be right to think that because Wright’s designs from the 1900s and 1910s influenced the later work of these Dutch architects.
tulip route
Tulips are a symbol of Spring and a symbol of Holland. The Tulip Route is 62 miles of tulips, windmills, and wooden shoes. A beautiful drive in the spring if you happen to be in the area!
Thanks to Art Smarts 4 Kids, Holland.com, and I Am Expat for this interesting info!