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Art of the Night

Broadway Boogie Woogie, By Piet Mondrian (1942-3) 

I always hear this song in my head when I look at this picture.

Categories:  Art of the Night  Bronx Banter

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10 comments

1 BronxToCT   ~  Mar 22, 2010 7:38 pm

This was one of the first works of art I ever saw. At my Catholic school in the Bronx (late 50's- early 60"s), "art class" consisted of picture cards of famous paintings that we had to glue into our notebooks and then write down below the picture, word for word, what the teacher wrote about the painting on the blackboard (which she probably copied from her teacher's edition of the cards). Even though I don't remember whether we ever discussed the paintings, they clearly made an impression on me, because I vividly remembered this painting (and VanGogh's Starry Night -- another "picture card" in the series) when I finally made my first trip to MOMA years later.

2 Chyll Will   ~  Mar 22, 2010 8:34 pm

This reminds me of Intellivision; there was only one kid in our whole neighborhood who was lucky enough to have one when it first came out. Now I hear that there's a game bundle that's worth thousands of dollars in mint condition with the console. Our household only ever had Coleco and Nintendo 2.

Anyhoo, the games this piece reminds me of are Burgertime and Snafu, but only if the console was on the fritz... I wouldn't be surprised if I wore that as a sweater or sweatshirt as a little schoolkid in the late 70's-early 80's. Nope, never went to finishing school for culture refinement (8r

3 Alex Belth   ~  Mar 22, 2010 8:42 pm

What's cool about Mondrian's paintings is that while they look cool even mechanical from a distance, and certainly in reproduction, when you get up close, they are very painterly. You can see all sorts of things painted over, lines moved just a fraction of an inch here and there.

4 Chyll Will   ~  Mar 22, 2010 9:23 pm

[3] I would actually call it pre-digital...

5 weeping for brunnhilde   ~  Mar 22, 2010 11:36 pm

[2] My god, Will, I've not heard the words "intelivision" or "coleco" in at least two decades. Which was which? What were the popular games? I want to say intelivision had a baseball game we played...
Hmm...
Oh, but wasn't it called "colecovision," not just "coleco?"

6 Mr. OK Jazz TOKYO   ~  Mar 23, 2010 12:10 am

[5] Intellivision had an awesome baseball game, if I remember correctly..ahh, the early 80s.."It's the 2600 from A-Ta-Ri...under 50 bucks?!?!"

7 The Mick536   ~  Mar 23, 2010 8:42 am

Went to Boston Museum of Fine Arts last week. Visited the Rabb Gallery where they have an amazing permanent collection, brilliantly arranged of European Contemporary Art. A Mondrian hangs next to a doorway that leads to another gallery. It is next to a Beckman. There are paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti, Miro, and many of the usual suspects. My wife and I discussed which piece of art we would take home. My first choice was a piece of sculpture; Mondrian came in second.

I like his white. White is the new density.

8 Alex Belth   ~  Mar 23, 2010 8:50 am

Remember George Plimpton used to pimp Intellivision? The claim to fame there was their sports games. And yeah, it was Coleco vision, Coleco for short.

9 The Mick536   ~  Mar 23, 2010 9:47 am

Not to take issue with the choice of Jim, aren't you supposed to listen to Boogie Woogie when you look at this painting? Piet did.

Back to the Rabb Gallery, go if you can. Not overwhelming like MOMA, but cool. Its in the Fenway district, across the park from the ball field. Fun seeing Gaugin, Morandi, Signac, Tchelicchew, Barque, Matisse, Giac, Arnette, Picasso, etc. close together.

And have you ever seen the photo Arnold Neuman took of Mondrian? It is a Mondrian1

10 Shaun P.   ~  Mar 23, 2010 10:36 am

HBO had this a few animated shows in the mid 2000s called "Classical Baby", where an animated baby in a diaper would conduct an all-animal orchestra that played classical music while they showed a piece of classical artwork and/or some type of dancing. The hook was that the artwork would become part of the animation - which is why I recognize this painting. I am positive it was in one of the shows and as they did a close up on it, it became a LEGO-like city with block-shaped people and cars moving around.

My daughter used to love watching those shows, and truth be told, I did too. It certainly gave me exposure to a lot of art, if nothing else.

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