How do the coloured areas in Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red create balance?

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Piet Mondrian Mondrian, photograph by Arnold Newman, 1942.

In Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red, Piet Mondrian achieves balance by utilizing his signature style of Neoplasticism. He organizes the canvas using a grid of overlapping vertical and horizontal lines, which serve as the structural framework for the work.12

Within this grid, the four discrete areas of primary color are strategically "weighted." This weighting allows the color to function as a form of counterbalance in relation to the specific role of each line. By restricting his palette to basic colors and his forms to straight lines, Mondrian avoids representational imagery, instead mobilizing these fundamental elements to embody "plastic expression" and create a harmonious, abstract reality.12