[Liberty Valance]

Ah Hah - now I know where the monopoly game people got the idea for the design of the board game in that second from last painting in your post #1.

[Republicanprofessor]

Ah ha, now I have to answer with a bit more about Mondrian's work. Now, he worked from a cubist influence. (We'll do Cubism next week. But, in short, notice that the earlier works have duller colors than Expressionism and have shading in planes...more about planes later) His early trees are quite discernible as abstracted trees. Then, after WWI, he developed his more pure geometric paintings, working to an ever purer concept.

Mondrian: Gray Tree, Apple Tree, Line and Color, Composition and Broadway Boogie-Woogie (which may look the most like that Monopoly board). Some love the energy in this one, inspired by a move to NYC in the late 1930s. But I don't like the yellow lines as well as the black ones.

MOndrian has written quite a bit about the theory behind these paintings. But the reading is difficult. Essentially, he is interested in a stable balance of forms, thus no diagonals (which add dynamism and energy). Each shape is different and there is such a subtle balance between the lines, white, and colors that curators can spot a fake immediately.

While these might be easy to copy now, remember he is one of the first to create such new works in the 1910-20s.