Mondrian and Nicholson: Parallel Lines in 300 Words

The last two visits we’ve paid to the Courtauld have coincided with London Fashion Week, which has its pavilion in Somerset House courtyard. There seemed to be little interest from the fashionistas outside in the paintings upstairs (although Mondrian’s line and form seem very relevant) but the basement cafe was like a packed sauna.

The Courtauld is a pretty small gallery punching above its weight, and this special exhibition only takes up two large rooms at the top. It’s good to see focussed smaller exhibitions though, and this is no exception.

The thesis is pretty self-evident and provable- Mondrian and Nicholson corresponded, so their abstract styles were well-known to each other and developed alongside. The exhibition basically has two aspects- a large amount of biographical items (letters, photos) and the pictures themselves.

I’d never seen a Mondrian abstract before, and I found them pretty shocking. The balance is key in Mondrian’s work- some of the canvases are so stark that the remaining elements hit the line between a strangely-harmonious balance, and feeling so close to toppling over I almost felt they could jump off the wall. I think having one around the house could give me vertigo.

Nicholson, on the other hand, has a much softer approach. There’s no lack of geometry, but I found them soft in their curves and tonal approach. I’ve never seen a Nicholson I didn’t like, even the hand-cut early circles are rather charming. Nicholson seems to be more intuitive in his shapes and the 3d forms than the almost oppressive empirical purity of Mondrian. I’ve no idea how either of them worked in a conceptual capacity, but they’s the feeling I got standing in front of them.

This exhibition had two of the key characteristics of both works- a rather humble purity and discipline.