Ravensbourne: Picasso, Mondrian, and Art & Design Movements

This essay provides a comparative analysis of Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian, two influential artists of the modern era. It explores Picasso's development of Cubism and his politically charged works like Guernica, contrasting it with Mondrian's abstract paintings and Neo-Plasticism. The essay delves int...Read More

Running head: DISCOVERING ART, DESIGN AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS
Discovering Art. Design and Cultural Movements
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1DISCOVERING ART, DESIGN AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS
When the term art and culture is being said, it is used to refer to the to the paintings of
the historical times which helped to start a historical revolution or movements based on the
form of art or the culture that is presented from that country itself. There are various types of
art forms which had emerged from such movements in the countries in the past. It is because
of the artists and the movement that they were associated with that today the world has been
witness to a large number of art forms of various types. These leaders and their movements
has given the world the art forms of various kinds. Such leaders of art movements include
Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian
The purpose of this essay is to analyse the works of Pablo Picasso and Piet
Mondrian in relation to the historical; context of those time periods as well as compare
between their styles of art.
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, poet and playwright who is being
considered as one of the most well-known painters of the world. He is best known as the
founder of the Cubist Movement of art form which can also be called as making constructed
sculpture. Among the most famous works of Picasso are considered to be the painting of
Guernica (1937) which shows the bombing of the city of Guernica by the German and the
Italian air forces during the time of the Spanish Civil War. Picasso’s art styles can be referred
to as before 1990’s where he with his friends drew cartoons depicting the conditions of the
poor, the Blue period during which his paintings were sombre with shades of red and green
and blue. Finally the Rose period which the paintings were still sombre but they were
characterised by Picasso using lighter shades and colours such as orange and pink and they
featured circus scenes with many acrobats and other performers in the circus (Picasso, 2018).
However, he is well known for his invention of the Cubism form of art style along with his
friend Georges Braque. Picasso formed cubism art style by combing ideas from Paul Cezanne
and Henry Rousseau to the forms of tribal art which motivated Picasso to lend more

2DISCOVERING ART, DESIGN AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS
structures to his figures. This further motivated him to establish Cubism as an art form which
helped him to make collages as he rejected the idea of images as an window on the objects of
the world and used it as a sign to refer to those objects. Picasso was a communist by nature as
he had joined The French Communist Party after the Spanish Civil War in 1944 (Bianchi,
2017).
Piet Mondrian was one of the famous painters of the abstract paintings who
was born in The Netherlands in the 1872. His most famous paintings are considered to be the
abstract paintings of circles, squares and rectangles. It is for this reason that Mondrian is
considered as a successful painter of abstract arts. He also took inspiration from the works of
Picasso and Braque, but he developed an entirely different style of paintings. He decided to
explore the nature through his paintings. By colouring nature with his abstract paintings, he
established the methods of abstract painting methods. He was also a close follower of
Impressionism and Cubism form of art which was made popular by Pablo Picasso which
helped him to develop his own form of art style (Mondrian, 2018).
When the art styles of Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian are compared, it is seen that
the art styles of both the artists are very similar yet very different at the same time. While
Picasso developed his own style of art form which is known as Cubism, Mondrian was very
much inspired by Picasso’s art forms but he did not go for the similar art styles for himself.
Instead, he developed a very different style of art form than the ones done by Picasso and
Braque. This art form started by Mondrian came to be known as abstract painting as he made
abstract colours on the circles, squares and the rectangles that he drew during this time. On
the other hand, Picasso developed the cubism form of art style which is known as one of the
most popular art forms of the modern times. Picasso made his drawings inspired from the
artists like Henry Rousseau. Picasso got the inspiration to make the figures in his drawings
look more structured than he used to before. This structuring of the figures helped to make

3DISCOVERING ART, DESIGN AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS
collages of his images. Picasso always rejected the idea images to be seen as an object for the
things outside and considered. He always used to decide to the images that he painted to refer
to the same objects outside that he rejected in the form of a collage.
On the other Mondrian, though inspired by Picasso and his works, developed a very
different method for painting his pictures. A founder member of the art group De Stijl, in
The Netherlands, Mondrian decided to represent to the world, the two sides of the of the
object that he used to create, This included a positive and a negative side of the objects that
he created represented through the horizontal and the vertical sides of the images that he used
to create. Apart from this factor, his preference for the modern art is highly characterised by
the transformation of his images from being traditionally represented to becoming completely
abstract. He also developed a new mode of painting called Neo-Plasticism. Inn this type of
painting, the artist explained realism by presenting the plastic version of his paintings to be
placed on the canvas which can be a new method of exploring reality according to the artist
(Fallazadeh et.all. 2017).
The artists were practising their trade during the emerging period of modernism.
During this time, some of the important factors that took place during this time include the
rapid growth of the cities as well as the Industrial revolution and soon the horrors of the
World War I. As such, the political, economic and the social situations of the country were
ever changing. As stated by Brain (2015), this is because the European continent experienced
great profits due to the availability of the International Trade. As stated by Macleod (2017),
the societies were going through a phase of urbanization with large number of cities building
up followed by industries and source of employment for the people of the countries. Apart
from that, the political conditions of Europe was also changing all the time. Industrial
Revolution has changed the shift of the power and therefore the Governments were trying
their best to maintain peaceful situations in the countries. In spite of that, there were internal

4DISCOVERING ART, DESIGN AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS
tensions between the countries especially Germany and the allied powers that indicated the
chance of a war breaking out which it did in the form of World War I. Apart from that there
were other kinds of problems that were present in Europe during those times which included
the problems of poverty and repression. It is during these ever changing conditions of Europe
that the artists like Picasso and Mondrian practised their trade (Childs, 2016).
Thus, from the above discussion, it can be made clear that both Pablo Picasso and Piet
Mondrian were two of the best artists of the same time period. While one was responsible for
introducing Cubism as an art form, the other was responsible for introducing the abstract
form of paintings to the world. Thus, both the artists had contributed a great deal in the field
of art and paintings in those periods. It is because of their efforts that these forms of art are
available to be appreciated by the audiences today. This proves that both Picasso’s and
Mondrian’s contribution to the field of art is undeniable.

5DISCOVERING ART, DESIGN AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS
Reference List
Bianchi, A., 2017. Portrait of Picasso's mind. The Lancet Neurology, 16(6), p.423.
Brain, R.M., 2015. The Pulse of Modernism: Physiological Aesthetics in Fin-de-Sicle
Europe. University of Washington Press.
Childs, P., 2016. Modernism. Routledge.
Defeyt, C., Walter, P., Rousselière, H., Vandenabeele, P., Vekemans, B., Samain, L. and
Strivay, D., 2018. New Insights on Picasso’s Blue Period Painting La famille Soler. Studies
in Conservation, 63(1), pp.24-35.
Fallahzadeh, A. and Gamache, G., 2017. Piet Mondrian’s Neo-Plastic Artworks (1917-1944)
Through the Lens of Zen Buddhism.
McLeod, M., 2017. Modernism. Histories of Postwar Architecture, 1.
Mondrian, P., 2018. CHAPTER THREE: Piet Mondrian. In A Psychoanalytic Approach to
Visual Artists (pp. 53-82). Routledge.
Noë, A., 2016. Scientist's guide to modern art.

6DISCOVERING ART, DESIGN AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS
Picasso, P., 2018. CHAPTER FOUR: Pablo Picasso. In A Psychoanalytic Approach to Visual
Artists (pp. 83-94). Routledge.
Smith, J.M., 2016. Truncated View of the Broekzijder Mill on the Gein, Wings Facing West:
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Todorova, M., 2018. Modernism. In Scaling the Balkans (pp. 42-59). BRILL.
Xifra, J. and Heath, R.L., 2018. Publicizing atrocity and legitimizing outrage: Picasso’s
Guernica. Public Relations Review, 44(1), pp.28-36.