Liberties There's nothing Artificial about our Intelligence

MONDRIAN Mondrian’s closest friend was the Dutch painter Eli Streep, a Jew who was caught in a raid in Paris in 1942 and murdered. Mondrian had escaped by then, via London to New York. Streep and Mondrian saw each other almost every day in Paris during the many years they both lived in the same shabby building on the Rue du Depart by the Montparnasse railway station. They had been schoolboy friends in Amsterdam, and they were among the first young painters to notice the death of the almost unknown Vincent van Gogh, a few of whose strange paintings had attracted them. They even visited Theo van Gogh’s young widow, Jo, to see more of her brother-in-law’s pictures after she had married the painter Cohen Gosschalk. Mondrian seems to have painted the first of his purest signature works around 1921, those with the first slightly thickened black lines, vertical and horizontal. He and Streep had always been struck by van Gogh’s intense, sometimes black outlines, his way of outlining faces and bodies as well as houses and trees. These painting-drawings of Vincent’s last few years, done in the insane asylum near Arles and then in Auvers in the north, where he killed himself, became, for Mondrian, depressed images from which he plucked the outline, and blackened and straightened them out upon his own white canvases until the lines depressed his own art, or so he thought. Streep encouraged Mondrian each day so that their poverty — they subsisted on bread, potatoes, and coffee more days than not — was little noticed. Streep thrived, if that is the word, on Mondrian’s radical ambitions for his unhappy black stripes, so new to the practice of art. Streep became Mondrian, in the sense that he enhanced Mondrian’s work and meager life. I mean that Streep’s excitement about his friend’s painting was becoming to them as any pleased audience is becoming to a drama or a comedy. When one of them sold a picture, which was rare, they ate out in a little bistro and then went to a brothel, as Vincent and Gauguin used to do in Arles when they lived together. The thickened black lines of Mondrian began to cast a spell, even a black spell one might say, on some of the few visitors to Mondrian’s room. This room in Paris served as a studio, bed-corner, and hidden little kitchen. When visitors arrived at 4:30 in the afternoon, Streep would usually be there too, having come down from his own room for the company. Paris often gets dark early and Mondrian would put a single dangling naked light on above his canvas, above his black lines. Three or four people would huddle around the easel in the darkness. Streep would be in his element. He rejoiced for his Dutch brother and for himself. Mondrian’s black lines became talked about in Paris and even back in Holland, among a very few, of course, and hardly any buyers. “I love Mondrian’s stripes,” a woman in a café would say. “Mondrian’s black lines are so sad,” said another woman, “sad and good.” “And right,” someone added. “How do you mean?” “Right for me and my sadness. Right for the sadness of everyday streets.” “Yes, one line going up and down and two lines across town. No let-up, just new sets of paths from picture to picture.” If someone did buy, only a few francs were involved and usually in installments. Paris began to feel war in the air. Streep said that the Jews were in trouble as usual. Half of those few interested in Mondrian were Jews. Jews in trouble. Some left Paris and Europe. Mondrian’s stripes saddened more and more days. Primary colored blocks of flat color between some black lines didn’t help to lift anyone’s spirits. But when the canvases were without color, fear could strike some timid souls. Mondrian and Streep embraced and took leave of each other. “I’ll follow you soon,” said Streep. He had some family concerns to take care of first. Mondrian and a lady friend of his got to New York together. Paris fell. A refugee, who made it out of France, told Mondrian that Streep was dead. Mondrian painted his black, black lines in New York, in his small room there. No color. He lived alone but he saw the woman he left Paris with once or twice a week. They went dancing and then slept together. Mondrian’s pictures of the Passion back in Europe became loved by some of those who loved art in New York. “His crossed lines are about his Jewish friend Streep now,” wrote a critic. Mondrian was my favorite teacher at the Cooper Union when I went there as a teenager in 1950. He and I became good friends. I will never forget him, his suit and tie, his white painting smock, his combed-back hair. But the real great memory for me was in his darkened room, huddled with him in front of his easel upon which he had placed a little picture, a single light dangling above. “Is this really about what happened in Europe during those years?” “Yes, but it is also about now, and it is also about tomorrow. Black lines which began then, crossed, and kept on their way.” HOW TO PAINT A PICTURE “Paint on a very small canvas,” said the aged painter to his listener. “Why?” “Because small is now better than large. Taste has shifted. Well, really, my taste has shifted and that’s what counts.” “But will people take the time to scrutinize small pictures? I mean, people lead busy walk-by lives.” “Sure they will, even if only because they do lead such busy lives. People will like to slow down and sort of stop the world to study a little picture closely. That’s called Culture.” Then the painter put a small canvas on the easel. He was in a plastic chair in front of it. The listener stood behind him, rapt and apprehensive.