Composition Checkerboard, Dark Colors

By 1919 the First World War had just ended, and Mondrian was preparing to leave the Netherlands for Paris after five years stranded at home. He had returned for a short visit in 1914, the outbreak of war had kept him there, and during those years he helped found the De Stijl movement with Theo van Doesburg. This is one of two checkerboard paintings he made in 1919, one in light colors and this one in dark. The surface is divided into a grid of 256 small rectangles, 16 across and 16 down, filled with muted reds, purples and blues. It is the grid at its most even, every unit the same size. Within the year he was back in Paris, breaking that regularity into the few black lines and blocks of primary color that became his signature.