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Piet Mondrian
Composition (no. III) blanc-jaune / Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, 1935/1942

Artwork Info

Artwork title
Composition (no. III) blanc-jaune / Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue
Artist name
Piet Mondrian
Date created
1935/1942
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
39 3/4 in. × 20 1/8 in. (101 cm × 51.12 cm)
Date acquired
1998
Credit
Collection SFMOMA
Purchase through a gift of Phyllis C. Wattis
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.294
Artwork status
Not on view at this time.

Audio Stories

How did jazz inspire this painting?

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transcripts

SFX: metronome sound … TOCK, tock, TOCK tock..  

 

NARRATOR:  

At first glance, this painting is a lot of lines, squares and rectangles.  

 

SFX: Metronome. 

 

NARRATOR:  

Regulated. Measured. Controlled.  

 

SFX: Metronome speeds up to double time. 

 

NARRATOR:  

The artist, Piet Mondrian, lived in Paris during a time of modernization. Sharp-edged buildings, train tracks, electric wires.  

 

SFX: urban street noise that sounds ok for 1935 – trolley/bus, pedestrians, motor vehicles etc.  

 

NARRATOR:  

Mondrian made this painting in Paris, using just black and white and yellow. And then a few years later, he made a big move that changed his life  

 

SFX: car horn, New York City street sounds that are more echoey, and the beginning notes of some early ‘40s boogie-woogie.… 

 

NARRATOR:  

– and his work.  

 

SFX: the beginning notes of some early ‘40s boogie-woogie.… 

 

NARRATOR:  

In New York, Mondrian discovered jazz. He loved to dance.  

 

SFX: music continuing. 

 

NARRATOR:  

And soon, his paintings danced, too. He added the hot red and cool blue squares to the canvas. See how they add rhythm? Sending us — [now narrator starts talking with rhythm of music that’s playing under the narration, and maybe even clicking fingers to emphasize] up…. down … side… to side ….  

 

Mondrian described his alterations to the painting as – “Bringing in a little boogie-woogie”.  

 

SFX: music out with a flourish 

 

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Audio Description

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transcripts

NARRATOR:

This is Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, 1935/1942. Clean geometry rules this painting. It’s made up entirely of squares, rectangles, lines, and right angles. The canvas is tall, twice as high as it is wide, and is mostly painted white, divided by black lines and interspersed with blocks of primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. The left side of the painting features a thin column alternating, white, red, and black, with the only blue in the painting appearing in the lower left corner. The center of the painting is a wide lane of uninterrupted white, bordered in black, from top to bottom. The upper right corner of the painting offers its largest block of color, a golden yellow going all the way to the edge. Beneath this, moving down the right side of the painting, thin black lines separate larger white rectangles. The entire painting is bordered by a raised white frame, which is in turn bordered by another white frame, continuing the sense of rectangles within rectangles from inside to out.  

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Other Works by Piet Mondrian

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