TV series – Masterpieces – Piet Mondrian »Compositions«

From Artwork to Cultural Phenomenon – Basiliscus Film Thinks Bigger

Mondrian's compositions hang in museums – and at the same time appear on sneakers, dresses, and advertising posters. For »Meisterwerke Revisited«, Basiliscus Film investigated how a Dutch painter working with lines and three primary colours became the blueprint for modern design. A conversation between art history and pop culture, translated into images.

Piet Mondrian's "Composition with Red, Black, Blue, Yellow and Grey" at the Kunstmuseum in The Hague

A black grid structure filled with rectangular colour fields in the primary colours red, blue, and yellow – endlessly rearranged, always abstract. Everyone knows them, having seen them hundreds of times in countless variations. Why is it that these particular compositions have embedded themselves so deeply into our everyday lives? Their recognition value is immense, regardless of the context in which they appear. Every icon of art has its own story and background that turned it into a classic.

Few movements in modern art are as thoroughly documented in their origins as abstract art. A key role in this development was played by the group founded in 1917 around the journal of the same name, "De Stijl", of which Piet Mondrian was a co-founder. From 1920 onwards, Mondrian created paintings whose tension rests on the formal relationships between rectangular, sparingly distributed colour fields in pure colours and the overlying system of horizontal and vertical lines.

Many classics achieved their cult status during the 1960s. To this day, they are continually reintroduced and used in new forms and with new meanings. Without all these adaptations, a work of art remains a mere museum piece, rarely finding its way into our collective visual memory.

A Journey Across Europe to the Icons of Art History – Storytelling and the Concept of the TV Series

Ten paintings that everyone knows. Ten painters and their biographies. Ten masterworks of art history. Cited, reproduced, and received hundreds of thousands of times. In the series »Meisterwerke Revisited«, we travel to Europe's most renowned museums, present their most famous works, and offer a fresh perspective on each one.

What qualities does Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa fulfil to be considered an icon? Or Edvard Munch's The Scream? Advertising creatives, designers, artists, and art historians tell us why these old masterworks remain as relevant as ever – and share their own interpretations.

In the ten-part TV series »Meisterwerke Revisited«, Berlin-based film production company Basiliscus Film – commissioned by Deutsche Welle – dedicates each episode to one of ten paintings that have achieved cult status. Our camera team embarked on an in-depth journey across Europe to visit the most celebrated paintings in art history.