110 works by Piet Mondrian from the Gemeentemuseum of the Hague are on show in the Orsay Museum from 27th March to 14th July 2002.

MONDRIAN's 1892-1914 artistic period— The path to abstraction

Our collective memory is marked forever by Mondrian's colorful geometrical abstractions, and this exhibition, dedicated to his 1892-1914 period, clearly brings out the extraordinary path this 'polyglot' of many an artistic language chose. We see how, after many years of experimentation, there resulted a significant ‘quantum’ leap, abandoning representational art.
For those of us who were only familiar with his apparently simple geometrical compositions, his versatility and facility with painting are amazing, as can be seen from an early 1883 still-life composed ‘à la Chardin’ and executed like an old Dutch master. He changed style and technique incessantly, traveling through Realism, Pointillism, Expressionism and Fauvism to settle in the realm of Cubism and formal abstraction.
What at first seems like an assimilation of the old masters by an assiduous student, developed through the years through intensive and inquisitive research. We witness the discovery of the mysterious world of visual phenomena, its infinite source of interpretation, its close relationship with the psyche, its linkage with the spiritual, and its universality of intelligence.

To read further on Mondrian, his work and his chronological biography, click here.