Evolution 1911

Piet Mondrian painted "Evolution," now at the Gemeentemuseum den Haag, as a triptych, maybe with oil, but it’s been thinned right down to a watercolour consistency. Look closely, and you can see the painting is laid on in these translucent veils of pigment. The surface isn’t scrubbed or worked, the colour's been allowed to settle, pooling slightly in places. It’s all about the liquidity of the medium. It feels like the paintings are an exploration of the idea of states of being. The color is so particular, all these shades of blue! The symmetry and frontality of the figures, their stylized features, create a sense of stillness and introspection. The brush marks and the translucency of the paint give a softness. Mondrian has approached a sort of Fauvist palette in service of something almost classical. If you squint, you can see connections to artists like Hilma af Klint. Maybe art is about making the invisible visible, and like Evolution, it's a process of change and discovery.