Abstract
At the end of the nineteenth century, Etienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge investigated the movement of the body in serialised form using new cinematographic techniques. These photographic experiments deeply influenced Euro-American avant-gard artists and thinkers of the early twentieth century, including the Cubists and Futurists, and artists such as Robert Delaunay, Frantisek Kupka, Marcel Duchamp, Theo van Doesburg and Thomas Eakins.
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Notes
- 1.
Gabo and Mondrian coincide in their criticism of Futurism and Cubism. However, where Cubism is concerned, the difference in their stance towards the theory of avant-garde art is pronounced. While Gabo vehemently repudiated Cubism’s chaotic compositional mode, Mondrian acknowledged its radicality and took its influence on his art in a more positive sense. Modrian was similary positive towards Impressionism and Futurism.
- 2.
For the arguments about the difference between Pythagorean (Quininianus) and Aristoxenus, see Chap. 5.
- 3.
S. K. Langer’s theory of ‘composition ’ and rhythm is discussed in detail in Chap. 5.
- 4.
Here, I am referring to the Op Art of Bridget Riley’s and Victor de Vasarely’s painting, whose calculated control of the viewer’s optic nerve causes the effect of kinetic movement. These works can be contrasted with, for example, the later Josef Albers’ and Mark Rothko’s 1950s works, which engage the viewing subject’s volition.
- 5.
Deleuze and Guattari summarized Mondrian’s idiosyncrasy as a painter in the similar way: “It could be said that Mondrian was a painter of thickness ” (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 194).
- 6.
An artist group associated with the publication of Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art, edited by J. L. Martin, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, published in London in 1937, in which Mondrian published his seminal essay “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art”.
- 7.
- 8.
Many an acquaintance of Mondrian comments on the humorous side of his character – his wit, bawdiness, and jokes. This is testified by Nally van Doesburg, Harry Holzman, J. J. P. Oud and others.
- 9.
In his writing, Mondrian seems to have taken care to distance himself from this esoteric understanding of rhythm, in order that his thinking not be taken as mere arcane mysticism .
- 10.
Harbert Read was an internationally acclaimed art critic in the 1940–50s. He was an acquaintance of Mondrian’s especially during the latter’s evacuation to England in 1938–39 (Burstow 1997).
- 11.
There are earlier examples of Mondrian’s work , which pronounced more ostensive visual movement and repetition , before his neoplastic period (1918–1944); for example, Pier and Ocean (or Plus-Minus) Series (1914-16), Composition in Colour A (1916). However, according to neoplastic doctrine, in which Mondrian denied the ‘naturalistic ’ treatment of repetitive and sequential rhythm, these canvases lack structure. The (rectangular ) shapes float on the surface against a vague background space, thus constituting a background-forground dichotomy which, in his neoplastic period, he vehemently denied.
- 12.
The sixth item in General Principles of Neo-Plasticism (Mondrian 1986, 214).
- 13.
“Vormbeelding” denotes the plastic form, and is translated by Holtzman and James as “morphoplastic” (Mondrian 1986, 394 n.5).
- 14.
Mondrian made ‘black-and-white’ canvases in 1926 (one canvas), 1929 (one), 1930 (two), 1931 (one) and 1934 (one).
- 15.
My thanks go to Harry Cooper who, in his feedback to my manuscript, pointed out that not all the black strips of neo-plastic canvases are varnished.
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Tosaki, E. (2017). Dynamic Rhythm and Static Rhythm: Polemics of Mondrian’s Theory of Rhythm. In: Mondrian's Philosophy of Visual Rhythm. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1198-0_3
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