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Piet Mondrian: Catalogue Raisonné (Vol 1)

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"It is proper to the way of living," the author Jean Paul Richter once noticed, "that one is polite also against himself".

However, Mondrian painted manically compulsively out of a fear against the chaos of the world daily. Although it did not feed him, he could not quit this activity; he continued to work, got pneumonia in that cold New York winter [slaving away in the unheated studio for three days non-stop] and died before he could finish his "Victory Broadway Boogie Woogie" painting. A tribute to the city of New York which on the other hand almost let him starve, the money at least did not reach for having the heating on.

Nevertheless he loved this town full of jazz, dance and boogie-woogie (he liked to dance there). His paintings are telling a tribute to this pulsating, dynamic Big Apple.

Burst from the desert of the Dutch landscape, saved in the liver Paris, escaping the racial world of the Nazis - like many other artists did. While however painters like Max Beckmann were getting a university-chair offered in New York, this luck did not fall to Mondrian.

With an astonishing optimistic colour joy he managed to compensate the real sadness. His last work, "Broadway Boogie Woogie" almost works like a city centre Map: Horizontally numbered the Avenues streets -- only the slash of Broadway breaking out of this grid is missing vertical.

One is filled with consternation occasionally, out of which suffering art can arise.

Mondrian may have been assessed compulsion neurotically. However, if he could set such harmonious works against this hell, he is a winner, not a looser.

His compositions against the chaos of the world are fascinating forever. The effort had to be done - though it has been a hard life for Mondrian...