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The New Plastic In Sculpture, Timothy M. Gallant

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

In his "new plastic" paintings, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) created an aesthetic of universal dimensions through the unification of simplified visual elements. Through an intuitive process of trial and error, Mondrian achieved the unity required for his universal aesthetic by creating a delicate tension between simplified elements in simulated three dimensional space. Mondrian's "new plastic" (neoplastic) aesthetic in painting, however, is physically bound to the two dimensional surface of his canvas and allowed only the appearance of three dimensions. In my thesis, I outline the translation of Mondrian's aesthetic into a physically three dimensional context, creating a universal aesthetic in sculpture …