Each time I watch Green Acres, my eye catches the Mondrian-style painting hanging on the wall as Lisa "adores the penthouse view." The square-and-rectangle piece hanging in the living room is undoubtedly a less-expensive prop than a multi-million dollar Sotheby's piece1 and a fascinating thread into how design movements rise.
The De Stijl movement, founded in 1917 in the Netherlands, marked a turning point in modern art and design. Led by artists such as Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg, the movement embraced simplicity, geometric abstraction, and a strict use of primary colors to create a universal visual language. Alongside designers like Gerrit Rietveld and Bart van der Leck, these pioneers sought to bring harmony and order to a world recovering from chaos. Their ideas influenced modern architecture, graphic design, and minimalist aesthetics in the following decades.
Above: De Stihl influencers Theo van Doesburg2, Piet Mondrian3, Gerrit Rietveld4, and Bart van der Leck5
Piet Mondrian and Composition C
Mondrian is the most well-known De Stijl artist and was a purist by his strict adherence to geometric shapes and primary colors he called "Neoplasticism." Though each piece is unique, his style is well-known in such paintings as the 1935 Composition C
- strict geometry (rectangles and straight lines)
- primary colors (red, blue, yellow) plus black, white, gray
- asymmetrical layouts
- and grid-like composition
A modern-day critic's take
Composition C (1935) distills balance, rhythm, and restraint into a deceptively simple composition underpinned by rigorous structure. A sparse grid of black lines frames planes of primary color — especially red—set against white, creating a dynamic, asymmetrical equilibrium rather than a static order.
Subtle variations in line thickness introduce movement and weight, while the colored blocks act as compositional anchors. The red rectangle quietly dominates, stabilizing the surrounding space. Though rooted in De Stijl’s reduction to essentials, the work avoids rigidity through Mondrian’s intuitive placement of elements.
The painting’s defining quality is its sense of “silence.” White space becomes active rather than empty, interacting with line and color to evoke clarity and balance. Ultimately, Composition C is less about depiction than relationships—between tension and resolution, form and void — offering a refined expression of modernist harmony.
