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Lot Essay
Angela Thomas Schmid has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
'I have no scientific knowledge. Only my wonder stimulates my curiosity' (Vantongerloo, quoted in G. Brett, 'A Longing for Infinity', in Georges Vantongerloo: A Longing for Infinity, exh. cat., Madrid, 2010, p. 30).
Painted in 1930, Composition émanante de l'équation y=-ax2+bx+18 avec accord de orangé, vert, violet elegantly encapsulates Georges Vantongerloo’s idiosyncratic approach to the ideals of the De Stijl movement, adopting a mathematically constructed rectilinear, grid-like composition to explore the inter-relationship of a carefully selected group of colours. Filled with a serene interplay of form and pigment, it is an important example of the growing complexity of Vantongerloo’s purist style of painting at the beginning of the 1930s, as he continued his search for a visual vocabulary made up of geometrical forms comprehensible to all and translatable to any discipline.
Although Vantongerloo arrived in Holland in 1914, a refugee from Belgium having been injured during the opening months of the First World War, it was not until almost four years later, in the spring of 1918, that he first made contact with the artists involved in De Stijl. The movement had been established in 1917 to advocate for an aesthetic and cultural revolution, one which would result in a new unity between life and art that could counteract the senseless destruction and violence of war. The works produced by members of De Stijl were driven by the belief that the synthesis of art, architecture and design offered a path to this new social utopia, and featured a common focus on pure geometric shapes, stark abstraction and primary colours. Approaching Theo van Doesburg with a view to publishing his essay ‘Science and Art’ in the group’s periodical, Vantongerloo quickly became absorbed into this radical group of thinkers, architects, painters and designers, marrying their theories and pioneering aesthetic with his own explorations in abstraction. Later that year, Vantongerloo published a series of articles titled ‘Réflections’ in the De Stijl journal, in which he outlined his theories about the role of the artist in modern society. These musings revealed his abiding belief in the power of abstraction to shape and alter the world, as well as a predilection for pseudo-scientific concepts.
Particularly influential for the young artist was the friendship he developed with Piet Mondrian at this time, whose writings on concrete art mirrored his own. While the extreme rigour of Mondrian’s aesthetic, its revolutionary approach to the abstract, universal relationship between form, line and colour, proved to be a crucial catalyst for the experiments of many young artists at the time, Vantongerloo’s personal relationship with the painter, whom he visited on numerous occasions at his studio, offered him a greater understanding of the unique principles of his brand of De Stijl. While there are obvious parallels between the two artists’ compositions, Vantongerloo employed a wider range of colour contrasts and relationships in his work, expanding on the strictly limited palette of Mondrian to include the seven main colours of the spectrum. In the present composition, he uses a variety of shades, from a block of bold yellow on the top left hand side, to a dark violet in the opposite corner, in order to interrupt the delicate white and grey squares that dominate the composition. These points of vibrant colour enliven the whole painting, imbuing it with a new visual energy, while the lack of thick, dark lines demarcating each of the rectangles allow a more direct interaction between the colours. Through this evolution, Vantongerloo began to push the boundaries of Mondrian’s aesthetic to new possibilities, exploring the manner in which subtle shifts in tone, hue and saturation altered the visual resonance of his paintings.
A complex mathematical language underpinned many of the artist’s works from this period, with their titles often taking the form of long and complex algebraic equations whose meanings remain beyond our comprehension, a combination of symbols and numbers held together by an internal mystery known only to the artist. Vantongerloo had studied mathematics as a young man in the Beaux-Arts academies of Antwerp and Brussels, and was intrigued by the direct application of its principles to the creation of art. By employing this crisp, quasi-scientific aesthetic, Vantongerloo believed he could reconfigure the building blocks of the way in which we see the world. As the 1920s had progressed, Vantongerloo began designing interiors, furniture and ceramics, as well as utopian architectural projects (villas, airports and bridges) along these principals. Although none of these architectural projects were ever realised, they offered Vantongerloo an important space in which to experiment with the integration of his theories into real life, and the manner in which they could affect and shape the way we experience the world.
Composition émanante de l'équation y=-ax2+bx+18 avec accord de l'orangé-vert-violet was formerly in the collection of Silvia Pizitz, an eminent American collector who acquired works by many of the artists associated with the Abstraction-Création group. Vantongerloo had been elected as the first vice-president of the group following its foundation in 1931, joining such luminaries as Josef Albers, Hans Arp, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Sophie Tauber-Arp in the movement. Pizitz, the daughter of the owner of a group of department stores primarily based in Birmingham, Alabama, accumulated a significant collection of revolutionary avant-garde art, and was subsequently instrumental in founding New York University's art collection, generously gifting works to it shortly after its inception.
'I have no scientific knowledge. Only my wonder stimulates my curiosity' (Vantongerloo, quoted in G. Brett, 'A Longing for Infinity', in Georges Vantongerloo: A Longing for Infinity, exh. cat., Madrid, 2010, p. 30).
Painted in 1930, Composition émanante de l'équation y=-ax2+bx+18 avec accord de orangé, vert, violet elegantly encapsulates Georges Vantongerloo’s idiosyncratic approach to the ideals of the De Stijl movement, adopting a mathematically constructed rectilinear, grid-like composition to explore the inter-relationship of a carefully selected group of colours. Filled with a serene interplay of form and pigment, it is an important example of the growing complexity of Vantongerloo’s purist style of painting at the beginning of the 1930s, as he continued his search for a visual vocabulary made up of geometrical forms comprehensible to all and translatable to any discipline.
Although Vantongerloo arrived in Holland in 1914, a refugee from Belgium having been injured during the opening months of the First World War, it was not until almost four years later, in the spring of 1918, that he first made contact with the artists involved in De Stijl. The movement had been established in 1917 to advocate for an aesthetic and cultural revolution, one which would result in a new unity between life and art that could counteract the senseless destruction and violence of war. The works produced by members of De Stijl were driven by the belief that the synthesis of art, architecture and design offered a path to this new social utopia, and featured a common focus on pure geometric shapes, stark abstraction and primary colours. Approaching Theo van Doesburg with a view to publishing his essay ‘Science and Art’ in the group’s periodical, Vantongerloo quickly became absorbed into this radical group of thinkers, architects, painters and designers, marrying their theories and pioneering aesthetic with his own explorations in abstraction. Later that year, Vantongerloo published a series of articles titled ‘Réflections’ in the De Stijl journal, in which he outlined his theories about the role of the artist in modern society. These musings revealed his abiding belief in the power of abstraction to shape and alter the world, as well as a predilection for pseudo-scientific concepts.
Particularly influential for the young artist was the friendship he developed with Piet Mondrian at this time, whose writings on concrete art mirrored his own. While the extreme rigour of Mondrian’s aesthetic, its revolutionary approach to the abstract, universal relationship between form, line and colour, proved to be a crucial catalyst for the experiments of many young artists at the time, Vantongerloo’s personal relationship with the painter, whom he visited on numerous occasions at his studio, offered him a greater understanding of the unique principles of his brand of De Stijl. While there are obvious parallels between the two artists’ compositions, Vantongerloo employed a wider range of colour contrasts and relationships in his work, expanding on the strictly limited palette of Mondrian to include the seven main colours of the spectrum. In the present composition, he uses a variety of shades, from a block of bold yellow on the top left hand side, to a dark violet in the opposite corner, in order to interrupt the delicate white and grey squares that dominate the composition. These points of vibrant colour enliven the whole painting, imbuing it with a new visual energy, while the lack of thick, dark lines demarcating each of the rectangles allow a more direct interaction between the colours. Through this evolution, Vantongerloo began to push the boundaries of Mondrian’s aesthetic to new possibilities, exploring the manner in which subtle shifts in tone, hue and saturation altered the visual resonance of his paintings.
A complex mathematical language underpinned many of the artist’s works from this period, with their titles often taking the form of long and complex algebraic equations whose meanings remain beyond our comprehension, a combination of symbols and numbers held together by an internal mystery known only to the artist. Vantongerloo had studied mathematics as a young man in the Beaux-Arts academies of Antwerp and Brussels, and was intrigued by the direct application of its principles to the creation of art. By employing this crisp, quasi-scientific aesthetic, Vantongerloo believed he could reconfigure the building blocks of the way in which we see the world. As the 1920s had progressed, Vantongerloo began designing interiors, furniture and ceramics, as well as utopian architectural projects (villas, airports and bridges) along these principals. Although none of these architectural projects were ever realised, they offered Vantongerloo an important space in which to experiment with the integration of his theories into real life, and the manner in which they could affect and shape the way we experience the world.
Composition émanante de l'équation y=-ax2+bx+18 avec accord de l'orangé-vert-violet was formerly in the collection of Silvia Pizitz, an eminent American collector who acquired works by many of the artists associated with the Abstraction-Création group. Vantongerloo had been elected as the first vice-president of the group following its foundation in 1931, joining such luminaries as Josef Albers, Hans Arp, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Sophie Tauber-Arp in the movement. Pizitz, the daughter of the owner of a group of department stores primarily based in Birmingham, Alabama, accumulated a significant collection of revolutionary avant-garde art, and was subsequently instrumental in founding New York University's art collection, generously gifting works to it shortly after its inception.