Piet Mondrian, Geometric Abstraction & Yves St Laurent: One Inspired By The Other

Piet Mondrian, born in the Netherlands in 1872 was a key figure in a community of artists and architects known as ‘De Stijl’, meaning ‘The Style’ in Dutch. Mondrian proposed an art theory in 1917 that favoured primary colours, black, white and grey, as well as reducing a subject to its essentials with simple geometric form, vertical and horizontal line.

Mondrian’s art philosophy known as ‘Neoplasticism’ sought to uncover a subject’s spiritual qualities and held that reproducing reality could not reveal these qualities since reality was opposed to the spiritual. Hence, abstraction was favoured over reality and the non-figurative over the figurative, allowing a disconnection from nature so the essential elements of an artwork or architecture were simplified, purely abstract and rational.

Mondrian understood that all artists manipulate reality to some extent, making decisions regarding the degree of visual means, or ‘plastic’ that is used in order to achieve their desired aesthetic harmony. His art and Neoplastic theory transformed him into an influential figure in the development of modern abstract art and geometric abstraction with the artwork ‘Composition with Yellow, Red, Black, Blue and Gray’ painted in 1920 highly significant and universally recognized.

Mondrian’s theories and artwork inspired other artists, architects and designers, with ‘De Stijl’ having considerable influence on applied art, the work of The Bauhaus Design School, as well as modern architecture.

Yves St Laurent, born in Algeria in 1936 and a notable French fashion designer, featured dresses in his haute couture collection of 1965 which were apparently inspired by a book of Mondrian’s paintings given to him by his mother. Appropriating Mondrian’s images, St Laurent designed a fashion collection that became known as ‘The Mondrian Dresses’. Focusing on simple cuts, geometric lines and bold colours saw Mondrian’s paintings transformed into cocktail dresses by St Laurent which ignited enormous excitement at the time. The ‘Shift’ dress, a style that is iconic with the 1960’s is a simplified and loose-fitting shape that allowed St Laurent to release himself from the confines of an earlier clothing design aesthetic and participate in revolutionizing the fashion of the time, with Mondrian inspiring St Laurent’s journey.

St Laurent’s personal art collection featured many paintings by Mondrian, Vogue released a sewing pattern of the Mondrian dress after St Laurent’s collection was shown, shoes inspired by Mondrian have been featured by Louboutin, Nike and others and the band The White Stripes released their album ‘De Stijl’ in 2000 with artwork reminiscent of the geometric abstraction favoured by the ‘The Style’ and Mondrian’s art theory.