By expressing this harmony, the painter could herald a utopia where the fine arts would no longer be needed because life itself would be beautiful. Mondrian took a step in this direction by arranging rectangles of primary color around his studio walls starting in 1919.
Mondrian believed that the rhythms of urban life — of traffic, buildings, fashion, jazz, and dance — also foretold the neoplastic utopia. He lived in Paris (1919-1938), London (1938-1940) and New York (1940-1944), searching each metropolis for evidence of the harmony that he tried to manifest in painting. Throughout his career, which spanned the world wars, he believed that art could redeem tragedy. "If we cannot free ourselves," he wrote in 1941, "we can free our vision."
