Composition A 1923

Piet Mondrian created *Composition A*, now at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, using oil paint in his signature abstract style. The canvas presents a grid of black lines that define a series of rectangles and squares, filled with white, grey, red, yellow, blue and black. This carefully balanced composition is immediately striking; Mondrian employed the grid to achieve a sense of harmony and order. Mondrian aimed to purify painting of all representational elements. The use of primary colours is not accidental; it is a deliberate attempt to distill painting down to its most fundamental components, mirroring the artist's interest in theosophy and his quest for universal truth. This rigorous pursuit of abstraction, where the lines and colours themselves are the subject, challenges our understanding of what a painting can be. The seemingly simple grid is, in fact, a complex interplay of vertical and horizontal lines, creating an internal rhythm and structure. This artwork functions as more than mere decoration; it is a profound statement about the nature of reality, reduced to its most essential forms.