Lot Essay
Mondrian painted the present picture in 1910, a period of experimentation and transition in the artist's career. It represents the west end of an early gothic church at Zoutelande. Mondrian was attracted by both the verticality and monumentality of the façade. These are the same qualities which strongly attracted him to three other subjects in this period: a gothic church at Domburg (fig. 1), a wind-mill at Domburg, and the lighthouse at Westkapelle. In all these works, Mondrian used the strong architectonic forms of the buildings as the substructure for experiments in color, foreshadowing the ultimate evolution of his style.
In the present work, Mondrian has applied reds and oranges, in nearly rectilinear units, to the façade of the building, and he has painted the sky in daubs of pale blue. The color contrast between the cool blues of the sky and the hot reds of the facade is very intense and vivid, producing a strong visual sensation of vibration. Mondrian was clearly influenced by three groups who had recently performed important artistic experiments in color: the Impressionists, the Pointillists, and the Fauves. In the catalogue to the 1966 exhibition of Mondrian's work in Toronto, Robert Welsh calls Eglise de Zoutelande "a unique fusion of French Impressionist and Divisionist styles, using colour combinations and a painterly brush technique to produce a highly original and novel work." (exh. cat., op. cit., Toronto, 1966, p. 116)
To judge from his contemporary drawing of the church at Domburg (fig. 2), Mondrian began these works with naturalistic studies in pen and ink. The artist returned to the theme of gothic church facades in his early Cubist pictures (fig. 3), executed in 1914 upon his return from Paris, where he had been exposed to the Cubist movement. The structure of these buildings appealed to Mondrian's most fundamental sensibilities as an artist; indeed, Mondrian's earliest abstractions, such as Blue Façade, Composition 9 (sold, Christie's, New York, Nov. 15, 1989), were also directly inspired by architectural elements.
(fig. 1) The church at Domburg, 1956
(fig. 2) Piet Mondrian, Tour de l'église de Domburg, 1909
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
(fig. 3) Piet Mondrian, Façade d'église II, 1914
Private Collection
In the present work, Mondrian has applied reds and oranges, in nearly rectilinear units, to the façade of the building, and he has painted the sky in daubs of pale blue. The color contrast between the cool blues of the sky and the hot reds of the facade is very intense and vivid, producing a strong visual sensation of vibration. Mondrian was clearly influenced by three groups who had recently performed important artistic experiments in color: the Impressionists, the Pointillists, and the Fauves. In the catalogue to the 1966 exhibition of Mondrian's work in Toronto, Robert Welsh calls Eglise de Zoutelande "a unique fusion of French Impressionist and Divisionist styles, using colour combinations and a painterly brush technique to produce a highly original and novel work." (exh. cat., op. cit., Toronto, 1966, p. 116)
To judge from his contemporary drawing of the church at Domburg (fig. 2), Mondrian began these works with naturalistic studies in pen and ink. The artist returned to the theme of gothic church facades in his early Cubist pictures (fig. 3), executed in 1914 upon his return from Paris, where he had been exposed to the Cubist movement. The structure of these buildings appealed to Mondrian's most fundamental sensibilities as an artist; indeed, Mondrian's earliest abstractions, such as Blue Façade, Composition 9 (sold, Christie's, New York, Nov. 15, 1989), were also directly inspired by architectural elements.
(fig. 1) The church at Domburg, 1956
(fig. 2) Piet Mondrian, Tour de l'église de Domburg, 1909
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
(fig. 3) Piet Mondrian, Façade d'église II, 1914
Private Collection