Just as pure abstract art is not dogmatic, neither is it

Host: The gallery was silent except for the faint echo of footsteps on polished concrete. White walls, cold light, and geometric paintings that seemed to float rather than hang — blocks of red, blue, yellow, cut by precise black lines. The kind of order that felt almost divine.

Host: Jack stood before one of them — a Mondrian, minimalist yet consuming. He looked like a man trying to find meaning in the shape of air. Jeeny appeared behind him, holding two paper cups of coffee. Her reflection shimmered in the glass beside his, soft against his sharpness.

Host: The room smelled faintly of paint and quiet ambition.

Jeeny: “You’ve been staring at that square for ten minutes.”
Jack: “Because I’m trying to figure out why it feels so… alive.”
Jeeny: “It’s balance. Simplicity. That’s what Mondrian was after — harmony.”
Jack: “Harmony? It looks like math.”

Host: A small smile crossed Jeeny’s lips, the kind that carried both affection and challenge.

Jeeny: “He once said, ‘Just as pure abstract art is not dogmatic, neither is it decorative.’”
Jack: “Right. Which means what, exactly? Because it sounds like something you’d write on a wall to keep people from calling your work meaningless.”
Jeeny: “No. It means art — real art — isn’t supposed to preach or please. It’s supposed to be.”
Jack: “That’s the kind of sentence that sounds deep until you think about it.”
Jeeny: “Then think about it.”

Host: Jack took a sip of his coffee, the steam fogging his glasses slightly. He wiped them with his sleeve, eyes narrowing on the painting as if it had insulted him.

Jack: “You’re telling me this — a few colored rectangles — is more than design?”
Jeeny: “Yes. Because it’s not trying to make you like it. That’s what Mondrian meant. It’s not dogmatic — it doesn’t tell you what to believe. And it’s not decorative — it doesn’t exist just to be pretty. It’s freedom without arrogance.”
Jack: “Freedom? Come on. It’s calculated. It’s precise. Look at those lines — it’s control disguised as chaos.”
Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s control accepting chaos. That’s the difference.”

Host: The light from the skylight above shifted as a cloud passed. The colors on the canvas deepened — the red richer, the blue colder, the yellow like quiet fire.

Jack: “You know what it reminds me of? Religion. Everyone pretending there’s meaning in the lines because they’re afraid to admit there’s none.”
Jeeny: “And yet you’re standing here, trying to find it.”
Jack: “Curiosity isn’t faith.”
Jeeny: “No, but it’s the beginning of it.”

Host: The gallery air was cool, almost clinical. Yet there was a tension in their voices that made it feel hot.

Jack: “I think Mondrian was lying to himself. You can’t strip life down to geometry and call it truth. The world’s messy — blood, laughter, betrayal, joy. All this —” (gestures to the painting) “— this is sterilized philosophy.”
Jeeny: “You think abstraction ignores life. But it distills it. He wasn’t painting the world — he was painting what holds the world together. Rhythm. Relationship. The quiet math beneath emotion.”
Jack: “That’s poetic, Jeeny. But it’s still a rectangle.”
Jeeny: “And your heartbeat is still a rhythm, but it carries your whole existence.”

Host: Silence fell again, broken only by the hum of a distant ventilator. Jack’s reflection on the glass merged with Jeeny’s, two outlines overlapping on the painting’s surface — like two halves of an unfinished equation.

Jack: “You always defend beauty like it’s moral.”
Jeeny: “Because it is. When something is truly balanced, truly honest, it carries integrity. Art like this — pure abstraction — it doesn’t manipulate. It just stands there, unashamed. That’s rare.”
Jack: “Or it’s empty. A mirror that reflects nothing but the person staring at it.”
Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s the point. Maybe Mondrian was holding up the cleanest mirror he could find.”

Host: Jack stepped closer, almost nose-to-glass, tracing the black lines with his eyes, his breath fogging the surface.

Jack: “You know what I see? A man trying to escape the chaos of the world by pretending lines can save him. Europe was collapsing. War was coming. And he painted order — as if painting peace could stop bullets.”
Jeeny: “But maybe that’s the boldest thing a person can do in chaos — create order. Isn’t that what we all try to do? Build meaning when everything else is falling apart?”
Jack: “Or maybe he was just afraid.”
Jeeny: “Fear doesn’t make geometry. Hope does.”

Host: The gallery lights flickered for a moment — a quiet hum, a brief pulse. The white space between the colored blocks suddenly seemed infinite, as if it stretched beyond the wall, like silence pretending to be sound.

Jack: “So you think this — this grid — is hope?”
Jeeny: “Yes. Because it resists both arrogance and decoration. It doesn’t tell you what to think, and it doesn’t beg you to look. It just exists — quietly, faithfully. Like conviction without noise.”
Jack: “Conviction without noise... that’s rare.”
Jeeny: “And isn’t that what purity is? Not about being clean, but about being honest?”
Jack: “Honesty doesn’t look this symmetrical.”
Jeeny: “Maybe honesty isn’t in the shapes. It’s in the space between them.”

Host: A group of tourists entered the gallery — their voices hushed, their phones lifted like shields. The moment broke, but something lingered — that stillness that remains after truth has brushed past you and kept walking.

Jack: “You know, you sound like Mondrian’s diary come to life.”
Jeeny: “And you sound like the critic who never let himself feel.”
Jack: “Feeling’s overrated. It clouds precision.”
Jeeny: “Then maybe precision is overrated too. It clouds the soul.”

Host: The tourists moved on, leaving behind a faint smell of perfume and raincoats. The room was theirs again.

Jack: “So if this painting isn’t dogmatic or decorative, what is it?”
Jeeny: “It’s discipline in service of freedom. A paradox.”
Jack: “That sounds exhausting.”
Jeeny: “It’s human.”

Host: The rain outside started again, tapping against the skylight — soft, methodical, almost musical. Jack looked up at it, then back at the painting. The rhythm matched.

Jack: “You know, maybe he was onto something. Maybe freedom isn’t rebellion — maybe it’s restraint. The courage to stop adding.”
Jeeny: “Exactly. To let silence say what noise can’t.”
Jack: “You always manage to find light in austerity.”
Jeeny: “And you always find doubt in clarity.”
Jack: “Maybe that’s why we understand each other.”

Host: The rain’s pattern on the glass echoed the lines of the Mondrian — imperfect, alive, spontaneous against structure. The world outside and the painting inside seemed to speak in one language: balance between will and surrender.

Jeeny: “Do you think he knew people would still be arguing about his squares a hundred years later?”
Jack: “No. I think he just wanted to make something that didn’t lie.”
Jeeny: “Then maybe he did.”

Host: Jack stepped back, his reflection now small against the vast canvas of white and color. Jeeny joined him, shoulder brushing his. They stood there in quiet symmetry, two souls balancing faith and reason under the same uncertain light.

Host: And as the rain softened, the colors on the wall seemed to breathe — not decorative, not dogmatic — but something rarer: truth, made visible through discipline, silence, and the fragile, human geometry of belief.