Mondrian and Plastic Expression

Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan was born in Amersfoort in the Netherlands in 1872 and began his artistic life as a trained painter of conventional landscapes. During his early years he visited Paris (1911-14, where he altered the spelling of his name to Piet Mondrian), coming under the influences of contemporary movements in painting, especially Cubism. These influences may be observed in the landscapes he produced on his return to the Netherlands, becoming larger, initially much brighter (Fauvism) and ultimately, abstract. He returned to Paris after the First World War and remained there until 1938 when he moved briefly to London before sailing in September 1940 to the United States, where he died in 1944. His mature and 'typical' work became known all over the Western world, fairly quickly entering mainstream popular culture in various forms but especially in industrial and fashion design.

Photo: Wiki Commons: Mondriaanmode door Yves St Laurent (1966)

In any discussion of the work of the Dutch master the word 'plastic' will arise, if for no other reason than that Mondrian himself used this word, in various forms in his own writings, notably for two art magazines, namely, Cahiers d'Art (French) and De Stijl (Dutch). In his response published in Cahiers d'Art of January, 1931, to criticism that his 'new-plastic' painting (and abstract art in general) was decorative ('purement ornementales') and geometric ('de dessins géométriques'), Mondrian claimed that Cubism had had an enormous value, having introduced into painting purely plastic elements and new technique. Neo-plasticism 'evolved' to some extent out of Cubism and Purism, both of which Mondrian defines with the term 'morphoplastique'. According to Mondrian, the freeing of artistic space from the limitations of natural form (which includes incidentally, Renaissance perspective) led him to make the further abstraction towards the essential spiritual rhythm of life itself, that is, freed from the limiting forms (la forme limitée) of physical life.

The word 'plastic' comes from the Greek πλαστικος, from πλαστος, meaning formed, modelled or moulded. The term 'plastic expression' has been used since at least the early 20th century, to discuss an artist's use and manipulation of his or her materials and the way that contributes to his or her expression; it can refer as much as anything to an artist's use of paint for example, seen as somewhat independent of the subject of the given work. Since the beginning of the last century however, 'plastic expression' has been applied as well to abstract art, as it is in fact by Mondrian; the term as he used it referred to the 'purified' expression in art of abstract concepts, negating thereby any and all references to the visible, tactile world. Given all this, let's look at some of the expressions used by Mondrian in his various exegeses of his painting, and of the movement (De Stijl) he helped to found in the Netherlands:

- 'la plastique naturelle' signifies art which aims at the imitation or representation of nature, of physical reality

- 'morphoplastique' signifies art dependent on forms derived from nature (e.g. Cubism and Purism)

- 'le néo-plasticisme' or 'la plastique nouvelle' signifies an art liberated from (arbitrary) form, that is to say, a type of abstraction; he also spoke of 'la form limitée' by which he meant forms limited by outlines and contours (e.g. Renaissance forms) imitating the 'forms' of natural objects.

In 'Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art (Figurative Art and Non-figurative Art)', [abbrev.: PA&PPA]1, Mondrian talks about 'the direct creation of universal beauty' as one driver in the creation of artwork, and 'the aesthetic expression of oneself' as the other. These two aspects, described as 'two opposing elements' were, according to him, until the advent of non-objective art, in an unbalanced state, with the latter element (aesthetic or plastic self-expression) dominant and therefore, skewing the effect of images too much towards the subjective. His goal was to unite these two qualities, seen as nevertheless essential, so as to create 'universal beauty' and avoid the contingent aspect of so much (Western) art.

To create the new relationships needed for this, he advocated 'neutral' means: technically speaking, a reduction or synthesis of existing techniques and content to 'neutral' geometric forms which, to a large extent, did away with a too heavy dose of the artist's particular viewpoint2.'Geometrical shapes' now seems like a pretty wide term for what Mondrian had in mind since, as we may deduce from his writings, geometric shapes per se were not the aim of his 'purified' painting, but were in fact, at least as much 'mechanical' by-products of the necessary straight line. Geometric shapes or forms were not an end in themselves but rather, an objective substitute for what he viewed as the 'subjective' forms of so much art (in PA&PPA, Mondrian says: "... it has established it through free lines which intersect and appear to form rectangles." [my italics]).

Piet Mondrian. Painting No. 9. 1939-42

The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

When he put several of those straight lines together, intersecting at right angles, he created thereby, geometric figures (or forms): naturally, the square and the rectangle, but also the triangle and the polygon (specifically, in his so-called 'lozenge' [French: losange] or 'diamond' pictures, see below); again in PA&PPA, Mondrian had claimed "... that forms create relations and that relations create forms". So, where one might think initially of Mondrian's straight lines, actually, by definition - once he had decided on the rectilinear grid - we must think of his squares and rectangles, and triangles, too! In fact, if one imagines a 'typical' Mondrian, two things occur in the mind's eye immediately and simultaneously, and those are his black lines and his coloured rectangles - and particularly his three primary colours.

Piet Mondrian. Tableau No IV; 

Lozenge Composition with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow and Black

c. 1924-25. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

But, whereas there is the 'typical' Mondrian of the imagination, when we look at his pictures, we discover a seemingly endless series of permutations of those basic elements: the length and width, and the number of the black lines - and even the density of the black paint; the multiple variations of size and position of the lines and the three primaries; the often ignored but quite common black rectangles or triangles mixed with the sometimes almost secondary, sometimes quite dominant role of the whites; the subtly supportive role of the greys; those numerous combinations of apparently simple elements produced an extraordinary number of manipulations of his basic themes. And one especial variation which he made his own: the turning of the canvas 45 degrees to produce, on the wall, a 'lozenge' or 'diamond' shape3, an innovation dating at least as far back as 1918 (Composition avec grille 3 or Composition dans le losange, 1918).

This gave the picture a very particular dynamism as the edges of the field (canvas) then took on an active role in the 'movement' of the image; in an odd way, these 'diamond' pictures therefore had four extra, but functioning straight lines, that is, in their de facto job of creating triangles and polygons. This point itself is interesting in light of the story that Mondrian split with his collaborator on 'De Stijl', Theo Van Doesburg, over his (Thoe's) use of diagonals: even in Mondrian's pictures, at least one side of a triangle is, of course, a diagonal!

Although a relatively small number of elements was used over and over again in Mondrian's oeuvre, even a casual survey of his work from about 1912 onwards will show how he sought to find and refine the essential in his image-making. Once he had chosen his tools so to speak, for constructing his pictures - he said in PA&PPA that: "The work of art must be 'produced', 'constructed' ..." - he continually honed them until his mature works glowed with a quiet, spare elegance recognised as 'beauty' of the type normally seen in the late paintings of masters. In relation to this idea of 'constructing' pictures, I recently became aware of a very interesting poem, published in Italian in 1509, by Francesco Lancilotti, in which he uses the words "esser constructo", which mean 'to be constructed', in talking about how a good painter should go about his work. So, even in the 16th century, the concept of 'constructing' paintings, like constructing buildings, was apparently current4.

Piet Mondrian. Victory Boogie Woogie, 1944

Oil and paper on canvas; diagonal measurement: 178.4 cm

Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, Netherlands

Interestingly, after his move to New York, Mondrian abandoned the black line, substituting for it first, whole coloured lines (e.g. New York City, 1942), and eventually, in Broadway Boogie Woogie and Victory Boogie Woogie, small flashes of now-on, now-off colours, still his original primaries, but now as active as neon lights in the centre of NY City; gone was the dominant, enclosing and defining black line and, in it's place, a joyful, almost ecstatic rhythm of lights, which incidentally, no longer wanted to stay on the surface of the canvas: they wanted to jump back and forth into 'our' space, picking up a theme he had touched on many years earlier in Composition with Colours A and Composition with Colours B of 1917! Coincidentally, also in those last-named pictures, the black lines were very short - a kind of floating anchor for the colours; in Victory Boogie Woogie once again, what remains of black lines is short vestiges (reminiscent in a way of much earlier images, such as Composition 10 en noir et blanc, 1915), utterly overwhelmed by the pulsating colour of both 'lines' and, by this time, much smaller but liberated planes.

One could almost say that Mondrian discovered that his black lines had been a sort of psychological safety-rail for him: he controlled them and they controlled his images. In New York he danced - literally - and continued to listen to jazz (something he was already aware of in Paris in 1931: "... on le comprend un peu en écoutant le «jazz américain» ... ") and this and the city meant he no longer needed his safety-rail: he could now dance instead of walk on his canvas! In this context, we can have a look at some aspects of line, especially as they pertain to Mondrian.

Mondrian is known to have been influenced by Theosophical ideas early in his career; many today would scoff at such notions as Theosophy but, again, the significant thing is not whether those ideas, or others, were right or wrong, daft or otherwise: the point for us is that artists are influenced by the philosophical currents around them, and it is what they, the artists, produce as a result that matters. This matters because what we see in the gallery or on the wall at home, is the complete, discrete world of a particular painting; in two or three hundred years, what will speak to the viewer is that thing on the wall and it will do that if it is successful in its own terms. The didactic function of a knowledge of art theory (and history) naturally leads to a substantially fuller comprehension, but to a large extent, the first impact of a work of art is independent of theory. 

At the time Mondrian was developing his own ideas about art, the scientific concept of Space-Time was much discussed, also by artists. For some, it pointed the way to a break, more or less complete, with the old ways of making art, and suggested that the canvas itself was no longer necessary. In any case, in light of Einstein's discoveries, Space-Time was a topic of discussion, however badly understood it may have been! What is important here is that this concept and the questions around it, stimulated certain artists to search for new ways to make art, and for new ways to explain what they were doing. That said, I would like to ask a question: is it possible that line 'represented' the 'Time' element in Mondrian's typical works? In some, the lines do not reach the edge of the field, but a basically black line leads the eye in one direction or the other: this is movement and movement implies Time.

If the larger planes and areas - as opposed to lines - can be seen as 'Space', could the lines be the Time in this duality? Could this pair be just one of many pairs of opposites manipulated by the artist to find and establish balance, equivalence, dynamic relations, and finally Beauty? (Dynamic sequence of inherent - but intuited - relationships). Note that balance and equivalence (of objective and subjective, and other opposites) are never established through symmetry (with the possible exception of his early Evolution, 1910-11): various elements, whether linear or spatial, are combined to set up dynamic rhythms with mutual relationships, but nothing 'equals' anything else. Mondrian insisted on the intuition of the artist as an organiser or administrator of the event which was the picture; this so that some degree of the subjective could enter into the process and, here too, balance the objective side - as typified by the use of straight black lines and the three primary colours 5 (themselves, in turn, balanced or objectified by white). In another sense however, Mondrian's colours 'represented' nothing but themselves; he saw colour as de-naturing both natural, or local colour, and matter. However, even he said that nothing in art can be absolutely neutral ("For every form, even every line, represents a figure, no form is absolutely neutral", PA&PPA); the point was to control, as far as possible, the personal so as to permit the universal to function fully.

Mondrian stated explicitly that neo-plasticism was based neither on calculation nor on philosophical reflexion and that the artists founded the new aesthetic only after they had created their works, from which it then derived6. The reference to 'calculation' may be due to another criticism levelled at abstractionists, that their work was too cerebral ('d'être cérébral à l'excès'); whether or not it was (is) too cerebral is perhaps a matter of opinion - a common enough opinion it would seem, in the Paris of the late 1920s and early '30s! However, there is no doubt that both the contributors to the magazine De Stijl and the adherents to the associated movement were quite cerebral; this was a trait common to a number of early 20th century European art movements, including Purism (French), Constructivism and Suprematism (both Russian). The complaint that Modernist art was too intellectual or cerebral was an almost universal one, coming from members of the general public as well as from sections of the more art educated or literate. What those various movements had in common was a dependence on ideas (often related to a desire to re-make the world, especially post-WWI) which were shared amongst their protagonists and adherents; the man (or woman)-in-the-street, so to say, was being asked to arm him- or herself with these ideas when considering the products of those movements. Approaching works of art with the assumption that one would be able to identify here a chair, there a figure, on that side a tree, behind that a castle and so on, was no longer to be the only, or even the major, way to interpret art. An implicit denial of the importance or even the role of representation of physical reality was an a priori position for many abstract Modernists.

In PA&PPA, Mondrian seems to me to express consistently his early Theosophical bent in the way he frequently refers to the spiritual in art, the desire for unity, the co-existence and co-dependence of opposites, and so on. He often uses such expressions as: "the unity of art", "universal beauty", "objective and subjective", "duality of forms", "the real equation of the universal and the individual", "inherent inter-relationships", "dynamic rhythm of determinate mutual relations". His assertion of the spiritual over the physical can also be related to Theosophical tenets. In a certain sense therefore, it would be incomplete to view Mondrian's art as a purely intellectual expression when his own writing is liberally sprinkled with "spiritual' or, so to speak, non-physical references; as were comments by van Doesburg and others; the spiritual, understood as the search for the "absolute". These same references, at least in terms of language, may be found in the theoretical expositions of any number of Modernist art movements; given this then, Mondrian is not much different from his artistic contemporaries.  The desire for an art 'purified' of its nostalgic and 'bourgeios' connections, especially following the many social upheavals in the first two decades of the 20th century, was typical of certain sections of the European avant-garde at that time7. For me, part of the enduring attraction and mystery of his pictures is their suggestion of some kind of inherent but largely occult (i.e. hidden) spiritual dynamism.



1'Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art (Figurative Art and Non-Figurative Art)' by Piet Mondrian was published in English in Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art. Eds Martin, Nicholson and Gabo. Originally published in Britain in 1937 and later in the US in 1971 by Praeger Publishers, Inc. NY.

2 "Evidemment, l'œuvre cubiste, parfaite en elle-même, ne pouvait se perfectionner encore après son apogée. Il lui resta deux solutions: ou reculer côté naturel, ou bien continuer sa plastique vers l'abstrait, c'est-à-dire devenir la néoplastique", p 192 of 'Piet Mondrian. Écrits français', 2010, published by the Centre Pompidou. A remark by the publisher at the beginning of this book draws attention to Mondrian's sometimes 'idiosyncratic' French and states that it has republished his articles exactly as they first appeared: "Ceux-ci conservent ici leur forme originale, avec toutes leurs idiosyncrasies, qu'il s'agisse des néologismes, des majuscules incongrument disposées, ou encore des erreurs de ponctuation". In this article, I have copied the French as it appears in the various sources, especially Écrits français.

3 Mondrian's so-called 'lozenge' or 'diamond' paintings are particularly interesting or, to be more precise, the fact of a 'normal' canvas being turned 45 degrees to then be hung from one of its corners - the new 'top' - is interesting. I am unaware at the time of writing of the reason (if any) given by Mondrian himself for this choice although, a 1919 diagonal image (in a square format) of his apparently disturbed him so much that he insisted it be hung as a 'losenge' ('De Stijl 1917-1931', by Carsten-Peter Warncke, 1991, Taschen). However, looking at for example, 17th century pictures of Dutch church interiors, the existence of similarly hung images (often escutcheons), especially on the columns supporting the building, is clear. One wonders if perhaps this historical custom were not partly the conscious or unconscious stimulus to his very unusual choice! In this connection, see 'Mondrian. The Diamond Compositions', pp 51, 52  by E. A. Carmean, Jr., 1979, published by The National Gallery of Art, Washington. It should be noted that Mondrian was the only one of the De Stijl 'group' who, once he had made the decision, worked exclusively without 'deliberate' diagonals; other members of the group, such as van Doesburg, Bart van der Leck and Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, all made free and repeated use of diagonals. Theo van Doesburg indeed, re-named his diagonals-based format 'Elementarism'.

4 Victory Boogie Woogie is an example of 'constructing' a painting. It is known that, at a certain point after his arrival in the US, Mondrian began using coloured tapes as a means of 'sketching' his images, later removing the tape and substituting paint (in fact, there are several examples of unfinished works with strips of tape attached to them). When he died in 1944, Victory Boogie Woogie was left unfinished, with many small pieces of tape still attached to the surface of the canvas (as they are even today). It is obvious on close inspection of this master-work, that he was slowly and systematically 'building-up' layers of both paint and tape, in other words, that he was 'constructing' his image. Further, it is doubly clear that he saw this work as a construction given that the very active whites do not sit down on the surface but rather move in and out of 'our' space, i.e. the space in front of the physical picture plane, or flat surface of the canvas.

5 'Écrits français', p 192: "Les moyens plastiques, c'est-à-dire la ligne droite et la couleur primaire, ne peuvent pas être plus intériorisées et la composition restera toujours nécessaire pour neutraliser ces moyens".

6 idem, p 189: "Ceci établit clairement que la néoplastique n'est pas née de calculs ni de réflexions philosophiques. ... seule l'esthétique, née après l'œuvre des créateurs et résultant de celle-ci, ...".

7 The horrors of WWI and the attribution of it to a decadent 'bourgeios' elite out of touch with the fundamentals of life and the aspirations (and beliefs) of the 'common man', the reappraisal of the humility and vigour of 'folk art', the return to 'purified' and utilitarian forms and designs (Adolf Loos, Bauhaus, Purism, Le Corbusier, Suprematism, etc.) and the belief that art should serve 'ordinary' people (Neoplasticism, Le Corbusier, Constructivism, etc.) are all ideas and concepts which drove the 'cerebral' avant-garde towards 'simplified' yet highly-refined abstract expression. The social good of art per se was asserted and put forward as a modern alternative to nearly all the 'official' art of the past.

Piet Mondrian. Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-43

Oil on canvas, 127 x 127 cm

Museum of Modern Art, New York

NB Unless otherwise noted, the photos used in this article were taken by the author during visits to the Netherlands and the USA.

At Monreale

The cathedral of Monreale is an extraordinary structure just south of the city of Palermo in Sicily. I visited this amazing church for the first time in 2017 and can highly recommend it as a unique and unforgettable experience. Apart from its raised position, with great views, and wonderful architecture, Monreale is famous for its Byzantine mosaics, some 10,000 square metres of them apparently, all done at the command of Guglielmo II (1153-1189), the last of the great Norman kings of Sicily.

One of the cloisters attached to Monreale, seen from the roof of the building.

This article is not about Monreale per se, nor about its fantastic cycles of mosaics, but rather, about a particular curiosity noted while studying photographs of two similar events depicted on the walls: the Crucifixion of Christ and the Crucifixion of Saint Peter. Christ, as we all know, was crucified in the 'normal' way, that is to say, upright (there is some argument about His having been actually nailed to the cross, as it was more usual for people to be tied to it), whereas St Peter on the other hand, apparently demanded that his cross be inserted into the ground upside down! This 'fact' is pertinent to our discussion.

The subject of the Crucifixion of Christ is situated on the western wall of the left transept while that of St Peter is near the other St Peter mosaics, in the apse on the right. As already mentioned, the mosaics are Byzantine in style and this means, to put it very simply, that figures, faces and gestures are generally represented according to well-established formal criteria; references to the way a real human body actually looks are, let's say, unwelcome!

What I want to discuss is the way the bodies of these two figures, Christ and St Peter, have been so differently drawn. Let's begin with the figure of Christ (in its Latin inscription: CRVCIFIXIO. IESV CHRISTI.). His body is remarkable in its apparent detailed knowledge of the objective reality or facts of anatomy, quite out of keeping with the overall Byzantine figurative environment in which it sits. This artist has, to my mind, obviously worked from a living model, i.e. a real man, as opposed to simply following an established scheme; or, he has studied classical statuary as a reference for human anatomy.

The Crucifixion of Christ, mosaic, late 12th century (?)
Il Duomo di Monreale, Sicily, Italy

In the area around the shoulders, the major shoulder muscle, the deltoid, is shown as it actually looks and, more importantly - and unusually - the smaller inserted muscle, the coracobrachialis, under the arm-pit, is clearly visible under this figure's stretched out arm, as is the bicep. The torso also contains explicit renderings of real muscles and muscle groups: the serratus anterior and the obliquus externus on the side of the chest, as well as the pectoralis major and the clavicle bone at the front. Christ's rib cage (thorax) is further remarkable for being conceived as a kind of egg shape - as in reality - with the latissimus dorsi muscles visible behind it. The insertions of muscles in the outstretched arms - biceps, coracobrachialis, triceps and then the forearm muscles - all suggest this artist has actually looked at how a real human body is formed.

He has also observed the complex - and complicated to render - knee joint, distinctly different in this scene from the knees in other images in the cathedral (e.g. the Temptation of Adam and Eve and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes). He has shown the patella (knee-cap) and the 'fatty pads' underneath it, together with the protrusions formed by the fascia lata and the lateral condyle of the tibia. The inferior extremity of the vastus medialis is also clear. Although the lower legs of the Christ are unremarkable, except for the way the foot comes out from under the arch formed by the ankles, the same level of awareness of objective realty seems to pertain in the legs of the centurion on the extreme right of this image. His straight leg shows a similar grasp of realistic detail to that we have seen in the figure of Christ, and his bent leg - shown in profile - clearly possesses a patella!

The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, mosaic, late 12th century (?)
Il Duomo di Monreale, Sicily, Italy.

In the Crucifixion of St Peter (in its Latin inscription: CRVCIFIXIO. SCS. PETR.) we have a similar but inverted subject; however, this image is much more the 'standardised' rendering of the event, and of the human body. Basic structures are there - forearms, biceps, triceps, pectorals and so on - but they are standardised, they are drawn according to a template, not according to observation. St Peter has a large chest, but, apart from the pectoral muscles, there is only the merest hint of any others. The latissimus dorsi seem to be there, but unattached to the shoulders. The chest and abdomen areas are hardly more than an observant beginner might come up with, having been asked to draw a man's body!

In this figure of St Peter, although he is putatively hanging upside-down, there is not the slightest suggestion of distribution downwards of the weight of his body. To all intents and purposes, he is a man crucified right-way up (i.e. normally) with his weight resting on the foot platform under his feet! Interestingly, this weight problem has been ignored in even its most obvious manifestation, the gravity-resisting loin cloth! This cloth is shown 'hanging' up (!), again, as it would appear - correctly - on a person crucified in the normal manner. St Peter's loin cloth however, resists (miraculously) the pull of gravity, presumably to protect the saint's modesty. And, indeed, although the hapless saint has nails in his hands, securing thereby his arms, his feet, as shown by the activity of his executioners (seemingly standing on the arms of the cross!), have none; which poses the question, again related to gravity: how is his body being supported, upside down? 1

It is clear that the artist in this case has simply followed a standard scheme for a crucified figure and, moreover, simply inverted such a pattern for an 'abnormal' crucifixion. Not only has he not consulted reality for the anatomy of his figure, he has ignored it as far as weight and gravity are concerned! I do not wish to seem to be criticising our St Peter artist, as the problems (if they are such) here described are those common to all 'artisans' working in such circumstances; even the ignoring of gravity is not an unusual feature in representations of the death of St Peter. I only mention these things to point up the very obvious differences in the handling of a very similar subject by, presumably, two different artists 2.

Finally, in reference to the drawing of knees, in the scene of the Crucifixion of St Peter, we can also see the standard 'Monreale knee' symbols in the legs of the Roman soldiers on the right. Two roughly joined circles are used to suggest knees, knee-caps or patellas, frequently, as in the scene of the Creation of Adam on the right wall of the central nave, having no structural or physically functional quality at all, and appearing more as holes in the legs than as anything else.

Oddly, the two hammer-wielding executioners in the St Peter mosaic do seem to have been derived from, or at least, based on, observation of real life. The legs of both are much less stylised than those of the soldiers for instance, and although not well resolved, some attempt to indicate the objective reality of life has been made.

What does all this mean? The preceding remarks are based on a study of photographs of the stupendous decoration of the fantastical cathedral of Monreale in Sicily. The building is described as a late-Norman structure, thought to have been begun in 1172, so the 12th century. This is important because the description "late-Norman" - Norman architecture being usually associated with 'round arches' - and the date, 1172, put us into the period of the initial use of the 'pointed' or 'Gothic arch' in Europe. And, in fact, despite being a Norman structure, built by a Norman king (Guglielmo II), both the interior and the exterior (especially the apses) are built - at least partly - using the pointed arch. The style of the contemporary internal mosaic decoration is undoubtedly Byzantine (Byzantine being a Greek development); in fact, the words accompanying the supposed earlier images in the apses are Greek, whereas, in the main body of the church, the accompanying words are in Latin 3. In any case, according to recent art-historical studies, the mosaic cycles date from about the time of the initial construction of the building and up to the mid-1200s; we are not dealing with the Renaissance therefore. The Renaissance (beginning roughly in the early 1400s, [a moot point]) was a period of re-awakening interest in classical models, not only in art, but also in architecture, literature, philosophy and the sciences. So, where did the body of this Crucified Christ, made some time around 1176, come from?

A view of the main apse of the cathedral of Monreale, again seen from the roof; note the clearly pointed arches used in its construction.

In these mosaics, in those images telling the Biblical and Christological stories, where there is an urban background setting, there are no (?) pointed arches; doorways, windows and archways are either rectangular or rounded, i.e. pre-Christian or Romanesque. And yet, there are pointed arches throughout the real building structure itself, both inside and out, and we have at least one paleo-classical revival, or, extremely late-classical image, the Crucifixion of Christ in mosaic work!

The absence of pointed arches in the background buildings represented in the scenes may be due to the fact that, in the 1st century AD, and before, pointed arches did not, so far as we know, exist in Europe. They would have been anachronistic in images representing the time of Christ4. But men and women who looked like you and me did exist and yet the people in these images are represented in an almost flat, stylised and schematised fashion, bearing little more similarity to real-life men and women than the background buildings do to real structures. And yet, there is that Crucified Christ!

1 A wonderful and wholly more 'realistic' treatment may be seen in Caravaggio's version of this same theme in Sta Maria del Popolo, in Rome.

2 I have no idea whether or not two different artists are responsible for the two separate crucifixions; it would seem so, given the aspects of both discussed above. It is also possible however, that one and the same artist is responsible for both and that, having made the Christ image, he was pulled back into line, so to speak. It could just as easily be that having made the St Peter image in the 'normal' way, he was then allowed to 'experiment' with his new ideas!

3 The traditional description of the huge Christs found in the apses of Byzantine churches as "the Pantocrator" (the all powerful) is written in Greek with, like the Latin inscriptions, many other words abbreviated (see below). But these words, "The Pantocrator" are like this: 'ΟΠΑΝΤΟΚΡΑΤωΡ', the 'Ν'' an oddly stylised one and the capital 'omega' - 'Ω' -  seems to have been substituted with a lower case one: 'ω', with the second 'T' attached to it.

Christ Pantocrator in the top of the main apse at Monreale, mosaic, late 12th century (?)

4 Nevertheless, that historical fact did not inhibit some late-medieval artists who happily gave their biblical buildings pointed arches! - and put their actors in contemporary, i.e. medieval, clothes. As far as clothing goes, even at Monreale, the clothes of some of the minor actors are contemporary to the period of its construction. The supposed 'biblical' fashion of the principal players (Jesus, Mary, saints and angels) however, was strictly canonical.
In this context we might also note that Guglielmo II was supposed to have had red hair, and, bearing in mind that he was the king and the man who ordered the construction of this great building, it is interesting that in the stories of Christ - not in the Pantocrator image however - Christ clearly has red hair! Another curious fact is that, whenever a table set with food is illustrated, there appears to be rabbit on the menu!

Maso di Banco: the Miracle of the Dragon

Maso di Banco was a student and follower of Giotto, and was the author of a beautiful and wonderful fresco cycle in the left transept of the powerful Gothic church of Santa Croce, in Florence (the Bardi di Vernio Chapel, painted about 1340). Maso's frescos have as their theme various episodes in the life of a Pope of the early Christian church, one (Saint) Sylvester (Pope from 314 to 335 AD): the picture we are to consider is The Miracle of the Dragon. The reason for looking at this extraordinary painting has little or nothing to do with the ostensible subject of Maso's image, but rather with the way he has chosen to deal with that content, the way he has composed his picture, and the startling way it appeals to our modern sensibilities.

The Miracle of the Dragon by Maso di Banco, fresco

Santa Croce, Florence (Photo: the author)

Here, as in much figurative painting, we are being asked to observe the action as if it were on a stage, where we can see everything more or less well. Maso has built two distinct but related episodes of one story into one very large painting, on the wall of the chapel. He has distributed the different figures and episodes across the foreground of the fresco, but has linked all the action by his very clever, and beautiful, use of architecture (and, with that therefore, geometry and perspective). Architecture was a common element in Gothic and late-Gothic art but, here, in the Miracle of the Dragon, Maso has treated the architecture in a highly original and personal way, thereby causing the modern viewer to consider this work with an unusual mix of late-Gothic art-historical sensitivity, and a way of seeing conditioned to some extent by Modernism!

One original element is his use of a large part of a ruined wall, situated on the extreme left of the fresco (not completely visible in the photo above), which creates the front-most plane of the picture; this wall forms a kind of enclosed space in the left foreground, thereby increasing the sense of 'reality' of his setting; this device of enclosing part of the drama within a space, within a space, so to speak, not only adds more interest, but serves to isolate and bring especial attention to this part of the miracle. These massive ruins enclose the dragon's lair and contribute to the sense of its being a desolate place - and, not least, also give the figures appropriate scale. 

It is in this enclosed space that an important part of the action is taking place, in a hole in the ground! The hole is where the dragon lived and Sylvester's job was to pacify the dragon. According to the legend, the dragon's breath was fatal and this explains not only the latest victims, visible on the ground in the second episode to the right side of the picture (and soon to be revivified), but also the fact that at least one figure, an aid to Sylvester, is holding his nose! The Emperor Constantine and his retinue are watching these events from the right-hand side, as Sylvester's actions are a kind of trial of Christianity. 

We now have several different spaces to comprehend: first, the real flat space of the wall of the chapel upon which the painter has made his marks; the suggestion of distance conveyed by the background architectural setting; the semi-enclosed left side creating a three-dimensional interior space (and its partial twin in the right background), and the hole in the floor of that building, which strongly suggests a vertical depth cut into the plane of the floor (and which convincingly argues with - that is, contradicts - our understanding of the flat wall on which the picture is painted!).

 But, extremely interesting is the fact that that front part of the building, left foreground, sits on the same plane as the 'real' wall surface, and not, as is usual, at some remove from it, somewhere in the fictive space of the image (see as an example the Giotto [?] image below); in addition, it sets up a dichotomy involving our reading of the 'illusion' of a wall, while at the same time being (unconsciously) aware of the real wall. This too is a device of the theatre, at least in modern times: to have the side curtains function as a kind of frame through which may be seen the action on the stage. Later artists used this device often: witness the innumerable painted curtains pulled aside to reveal what was going on 'in' the picture. But Maso seems to anticipate all this, and in no uncertain terms; his left-side arched wall is an emphatic part of the picture, not a minor detail. With this, he anticipates the 20th century's quasi-obsession with respect for the 'picture-plane', that is, not only not a denial of the fact of the flat picture surface (wall, canvas, board, etc.) but, often, a positive re-statement of it!

A detail of the left side of Maso's fresco showing the ruined arch, the column and the building which 'enclose' the first episode, and the hole where the dragon resides.  

Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: the author)

An obvious but here very important element of this fresco is its colour. The principal colour-scheme is the relationship between the white or off-white buildings and the red one (colours which are replicated or re-stated across the fresco in the clothes of some of the figures in the drama). The first building we come to - a dun colour - is on the left and consists of a wall with a large broken arch looking like it would probably have originally extended over to the lone white column, also in the immediate foreground. Behind the wall on the left is another dun wall which could possibly belong to the same building and which in any case, seems to enclose the action of the first episode; the column acts as a convenient separation between that scene and the second one taking place (or, subsequently to take place) in the central part of the fresco foreground. The large sun-lit ruin in the right background is a sort of off-white, and as such, helps to draw our eyes across the painting, and into the background, in this way establishing, psychologically, a perceived depth. The dull red of the large structure in the left background at once establishes itself as an important compositional component, as well as managing to 'sit back' and not intrude on the action in the foreground. Lastly, a word about the colour of the 'sky': this is nowadays, due to the fresco technique used by Maso, a deep indigo tone but was originally a bright blue (1). 

A detail of the centre and right of the fresco showing the 'arch themes' which recur here and elsewhere in this painting; note also the 'framing' red arch above Saint Sylvester in the background. Incidentally, the triangle, formed here by this central group, became a standard of Renaissance composition more than a hundred years later. Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: the author)

Behind Saint Sylvester in the second scene are two pieces of ruined wall, both having shapes which happily also imply arches: the first is the arch running from the left-hand fragment of dun wall and in a way, transferring to the lower white wall to its right; the second is that created by the shape of Sylvester's assistant, standing behind him, which runs through Sylvester's shoulders, across the right-hand fragment of white wall again, and down the curve of the backs of the two men kneeling before him (especially the yellow-cloaked one; see above). The whitish building in the background on the right, with its three arches, also forms an enclosure which mirrors that of the 'room' in the left foreground; the broken and sloping wall at its front conveniently leads our eyes back to Saint Sylvester from that side of the image. The group of figures surrounding the Emperor on the right - apart from concluding the narrative - forms a kind of balance for the (somewhat more interesting) action and scene on the left. The rear wall of the left-hand building, and the little bit of white, curved wall in the centre, together with a greenish mound, form the middle-ground, separating the principal episodes from the very much more abstract background buildings.

A detail (distorted somewhat by the photo) showing the middle- and background architectural elements, and their colour. Note the extreme abstraction of the architecture and how different that is from the way architecture was usually used by Maso's contemporaries, and by Giotto.  Santa Croce, Florence. 

(Photo: the author)

And it is those background buildings, those red and white walls, with their arches and open spaces, which are of great interest to modern eyes. Precisely because these 'buildings' have been treated in such an abstract way, precisely because they are little more than planes and arches, precisely because they basically say 'geometry', and whisper 'perspective', is why they speak to us, in the 21st century, and help to make Maso's late-Gothic story into a system of clear, uncluttered 'abstract' statements; these structures are so free of imitative detail that, in all probability, even Adolf Loos would have been happy! As well, the twice-appearing Saint Sylvester is a geometric shape, more or less a cone - as is his mitre - and is cleverly and subtly mirrored on the right side in the inverted cone-shaped, red vestment of the Emperor's advisor. This clear, and to my eyes, radical treatment of architecture, may be compared with some of the scenes on the other walls of the chapel: there, the treatment of buildings and interiors is basically 'normal' for the period, and for a follower of Giotto. Having said that, even in those scenes, Maso manages to be in a certain way, still more 'minimal' than Giotto certainly.

Some may say that the red building is not quite right in terms of its perspective drawing and, in fact, it is a little problematical, especially in the way the isolated red arch which frames Sylvester in the centre is attached; but, interestingly, we are clearly lower than that building, and are made to feel that we are looking up at it. There is no reason why it has to be oriented in the same direction as the whitish ruin on the right and, in general terms, the red cube with its walls and arches on top is quite convincing! The actual fresco is very large, about 5.34 metres across, and is very impressive when seen in person, as it were. The intellectual clarity of the overall conception, and especially of those geometric background structures appeals, I believe, to eyes familiar with the pure geometry of a Mondrian or the minimalist aesthetics of twentieth century architecture and design; or to those who like De Chirico's receding arches!

I have made mention already of the arches in the background, and of the implied ones in the centre-foreground - and of the large broken one in the left foreground: but what else can be said about them? Well, to begin with, it's evident that Maso was quite interested in arches, and in the natural way they provide a contrast to the straight lines of the buildings they are attached to. In terms of the buildings' representing, as symbols, pagan ancient Rome - and perhaps its passing - they are highly abstracted and refined references; but, they are flat! Apart from the human figures (and the hapless dragon!), the only 'round' objects or pieces of architecture, are the lone column in the front and the anonymous dark tower in the far right background; as such, the single white column with its capital provides an elegant foil to the flat planes everywhere else (in the man-made structures). This seems to accentuate the planar quality of these structures, and their abstract geometry.

The Homage of a Simple Man, by Giotto and/or his workshop, in the Basilica of San Francesco, at Assisi. Note that for the buildings, which are small in relation to the figures, there are various vanishing points, all inconsistent with each other; also, while we see these buildings somewhat from the right, the figures are lined up parallel with an imaginary horizontal line running along the bottom of the image, and we see them (the figures) as though from directly in front; that is, from a point of view not consistent with the view of the buildings.

This aspect appears quite a departure from the representation of buildings by Maso's master, Giotto, whose constructions were generally doll's house-like symbols of more or less real structures (such as churches and even a Roman temple - the Temple of Minerva, still extant in the centre of Assisi - as in the image above). Often in late-Gothic art, buildings are rendered disproportionately small in relation to the size of the human actors; Maso, in his Miracle of the Dragon fresco, has overturned that tradition: his structures have a real, possible relationship in terms of proportion to the figures set in his quasi-minimalist environment. To me, it is a matter of some curiosity that Maso's extraordinary conception was accepted by those who commissioned him to paint it; certainly today, his refined and 'purist' architecture would not raise an eyebrow, if anything, it would be the figures to do so! It should also be mentioned that Maso was working in this chapel about 100 years or so before the revival (and perfection) of linear perspective at the hands of artists such as Alberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Uccello and Ghiberti. He continues the early enquiry made by Giotto and, I think, in this fresco, as far as buildings are concerned, reaches a point beyond any reached by his master. But, most importantly, his partly-intuitive, partly-scientific attempts at accurate perspective bring him closer to his (surely unexpected) 21st century audience than perhaps the work of any other Gothic painter is. In his use of a 'modern' scale, Maso has implied the actual relationship between man and his environment. Earlier Medieval and Gothic artists, both in painting and in sculpture, had placed man in an unreal scale vis-à-vis his environment; perhaps sometimes to indicate distance but, more usually, because the pertinent actions of human and divine actors were of principal narrative concern, not the literal correctness of the ambience in which those actions occurred. 

The symbolic character of the representation of 'place' is evident not only in artists' use of architecture, but also when dealing with certain natural environments, such as where hermits or 'desert fathers' may live: Italian artists used a kind of schematic shorthand to indicate 'desert' or wilderness, having never been anywhere near oriental or African deserts themselves!

St Anthony Abbot in the Wilderness, c 1435, by the Osservanza Master, The Met, NY.

A completely fantastic landscape here provides the ambience for a representation of the Abbot, St Anthony; while the colours, and particularly those of the sky, are beautiful, this early-fifteenth century image has the same connection with the 'real' world as does a children's story-book illustration. 

(Photo: the author)

In many religious images of the time of Maso di Banco, a clear hierarchy operated in which God was at the top, then the Church, then Man, then, if at all, everything else! The 'backgrounds' of Medieval and Gothic images were hardly more than stage-sets before which were played out the stories of the Christian faith. As Humanism developed and painting changed, and Man's place in the physical cosmos was better understood from a scientific point of view, his environment took on more and more importance, to the point in the later 15th century where we can have pictures of 'ideal cities' as the sole theme of a painting (see below).

Città Ideale, about 1477 (even 1490 - 1500), kept at the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino. An example from a group of three such views of ideal cities, this one thought by some to have been painted by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, although artists such as Piero della Francesca, and even Alberti himself, have been suggested as well. The other two paintings are in Berlin and Baltimore. (Not a good photo by the author!)

I may mention here in relation to the Ideal City above, the complete absence of human - or divine - figures (2); i.e. although the actions of human beings are clearly implied in the very existence of the buildings themselves, what we see principally is the result of the work of Man's intellectual and logical mind, that is to say, Man functioning without or independently of 'faith' or superstition. There is no religious or other narrative 'excuse' for this picture (the central circular structure could be a temple or a church, it is unclear); in any case, it is a celebration of Man's freedom of thought and his deliberate positive ability. This is also true of the Berlin example although not of the Baltimore painting, which does have human figures (thought by some however to have been added later).

Maso's Miracle of the Dragon is a long way from the philosophical concerns (Humanism, Neo-Platonism) of a century and a half later, and his retelling of the Saint Sylvester story is quite orthodox; what is related nonetheless to later interests is his ability to compose in large geometric masses, at least as far as the buildings are concerned. As already suggested, he unwittingly creates a bridge between the theocratic religious world-view of the late-Gothic environment he lived in, and the purist formalism or minimalism of the 20th century.

1This involved undercoating with a red, known in Italian as 'morellone', directly on the wet plaster; the final blue, its tone altered by the undercoat, being applied when the red was dry. This led subsequently to the blue's falling off and the present appearance of the 'sky'. A similar loss has occurred with the various metals, like gold or tin, which were originally applied in certain areas such as in haloes or on rich garments. This means that what we see now, even after recent restoration, is unfortunately not the intact, complete image Maso had left us, almost 700 years ago.

2 Note however, the presence of two or three white doves below the first floor window, near the corner of the building at the front, on the right side of the Urbino painting!