Dune IV 1910

Piet Mondrian made *Dune IV* with oil on cardboard, but we don't know exactly when. I can almost feel Mondrian working on this landscape—the pinks and oranges, the dragged brushstrokes. The making seems really intuitive. I like to imagine Mondrian out there, doing his best with what he sees, the wind, the light... It's like he’s trying to find the bones of the landscape. And, look, you can see how he's thinking about breaking down the image into something more fundamental. Those blue marks on the pink shapes almost read as a precursor to his later grids and blocks of color. It makes you realize that all artists are just constantly riffing off each other, across time, trying to figure out what the heck painting is even for. It's not about answers. It's more about the questions we can ask.