In Mondrian's Studio

This documentary traces the life of Piet Mondrian - one of the most important painters in the last century.

In the film, there's a reproduction of his studio in Paris, in which he develops his unique style of abstraction by literally living in his art.

There's one scene I found fascinating, where he plays with dozens of matches on a table, creating different patterns of horizontal and vertical, and slowly the beautiful form starts to emerge. It's just a wonderful sequence.

The film mentions a few things that greatly influenced him; Cubism and more importantly, jazz.

As an introduction to his life and work, I really liked it.

“Art should never slumber in all that is nice and pretty.
The emotion of beauty is always obscured by the appearance of the object.
From now on, the object must be eliminated from the painting.”

“Art today is condemned to a separate existence for present day life is essentially tragic.
But in some distant future, art and life will be one.”