The Winkel Mill, Pointillist Version

Piet Mondrian was inspired to create this painting by a specific windmill in the countryside near Amsterdam. Perhaps the unrelenting flatness of the Dutch landscape and the counterpoint of the simple vertical windmill led to his focus on horizontal and vertical forms as expressions of the essential structure of nature. Here Mondrian experiments with pointillism, a scientific aesthetic approach in which small dots of color are placed side by side in order to increase the overall sensation of light and color.

Adapted from Dorothy Kosinski, DMA label copy, 2003

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