GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Strong lines dominate this scene of a farmhouse at twilight. The dwindling light at the end of the day creates a halo of vibrant orange around the interlocking web of barren trees, highlighting the linear patterns created by their branches.
Piet Mondrian often visited this farm near Duivendrecht, a small village near Amsterdam, and made many paintings of the building and surrounding trees. This scene captures his attentiveness to the nuances of light, shadow, and reflection. The painting simultaneously hints at the artist’s growing interest in the fl attening of forms and the linear structures of his later fully abstract paintings.
Excerpt from
Heather MacDonald, DMA label copy, 2010.
NOTES
1987.359 added to the Piction cataloguing for this DMA Bulletin (12054414)
c. 1916 (reprise of a compositional series from 1905-1908)
October 2010
Piet Mondrian is best known for the grid-like geometric abstractions he produced from about 1920 until his death in 1944. Uncompromisingly stark, relentless in their reduction of perception and ideation to a finely balanced architecture of straight lines and flat rectangular planes, these works set a new standard in modern art for purity of structure and integrity of purpose. Indeed, they have come to symbolize a whole segment of the modernist movement dedicated to idealism in pictorial expression. Within the remarkably rich Mondrian holdings in the Dallas Museum of Art, this mature phase of his career is well represented by such works as Composition with Great Blue Plane of 1921 and Place de la Concorde of 1938-43 (plate 2).
Against this radical pictorial puritanism, the naturalistic and quasi-naturalistic styles that mark Mondrians earlier development seem almost the work of an entirely different artist! Surprising are their earthy colors, attentiveness to particularities of natural form, light, and atmosphere, and variety of often quite expressive brushwork. Much less publicly familiar, such works nevertheless comprise a relatively large percentage of Mondrians total oeuvre, and moreover, relate a fascinating tale of artistic evolution that eventually led him to repudiate the natural world as a direct source of visual inspiration. Thanks to gifts from the James H. Clark family; the Museum is well endowed with works from this early period. The further development of these resources through a gift from the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation of a particularly large and beautiful early landscape, the Farm Near Duivendrecht from circa 1908-09, is therefore especially exciting . This imposing picture hung for many years in the
private collection of Mr. and Mrs. Marcus. Its gift fulfills their long felt, generous intention of sharing it with the public in the context of the
Museums other Mondrian paintings.
A moody evocation of evening calm and loneliness, Farm Near Duivendrecht (plate 3) depicts a subject that Mondrian painted and drew many times , starting about 1905. Duivendrecht is a small village on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Mondrian had studied in Amsterdam at the Academy of Fine Art and lived there intermittently beginning in 1892. His interest in nature and the rural Dutch countryside led him on frequent excursions out of the city and helped stimulate a growing emphasis on landscape painting in his artistic development. Farmhouses, groves of trees, windmills , rivers, and other pastoral subjects began during the early years of the century to supplant the figurative work that had been the staple of his academic training. Among other favorite sites, the complex of buildings and trees seen in Farm Near Duivendrecht seems to have held special interest, judging from the number of times it appears in different works over a lengthy period. Indeed, the series was so prolonged that serious
problems of dating the various versions still exist. Evidence points to a date for our particular version around the middle of the series, about 1908-09.
Together, the paintings of this farm complex comprise a particularly expressive and monumental theme in Mondrian's early years. The time of day or night, shifts from composition to composition, as does the horizon level and the overall degree of stylization of forms. But the oblique perspective onto the buildings, the dominant, central placement of the main motif and its reflected image, and most importantly, the eerie atmosphere of isolation remain much the same. In all cases, it is a landscape barren of people.' The buildings signal habitation but seem deserted. All vitality of life is focused in the rather ghostly trees that twist and writhe as they push their spidery, finger-like branches upward. In numerous landscapes by van Gogh and the great German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, similar gnarly tree s serve as a voice for what these artists saw as the soul of nature, and Mondrian must have shared to some degree these strong empathetic feelings. Luminous backlighting from the setting sun throws the central forms into even more stark relief and gives them a penumbral aura of pastel pinks, yellows, and blues that is particularly mysterious and otherworldly. Overhead glide in dark , haunting silhouette several large birds, and the smooth-flowing stream that
runs far off into the distance at the right underscores a sense of psychological and spatial isolation.
So common was Mondrian s exploration of somber lighting and mood during these years that one critic dubbed it his "evening landscape" period. Other aspects of Farm Near Duivendrecht can also be seen as typifying certain long-range stylistic developments, traceable with remarkable continuity through other early paintings in the Dallas collection. In simplified terms, Mondrian's lengthy naturalistic phase consists of an evolution from realist styles based on such models as the French Barbizon School and the Hague School of Impressionists toward greater conceptualization
and eventually, total abstraction. In this process, a soberly direct, self-effacing approach to nature is displaced by increasing degrees of personal editing and interpretation. Throughout, certain inherent traits are identifiable such as the tendency toward simplification and' order and an emphasis on underlying structural form.
An oil sketch in the DMA collection of trees along the River Gein (plate 4) shows the extent to which Impressionism had loosened up Mondrian's tighter naturalistic style by about 1903. This work has the sense of spontaneity and direct observation of a sketch done fully "on the spot." Its short, blurred strokes, earthy colors, and a totally undramatic subject, mark most of the landscapes of this period, which are devoted to candid portrayals of the countryside in its most humble aspects. It is interesting to note, however, that certain features already anticipate the composition of the Farm Near Duivendrecht, such as the strict centering of the main motif, the use of a foreground reflection to create a mirror image, the emphasis
on linear tree branches, the alignment of those branches to produce a flattened pattern, and the cropping of design by the picture frame to anchor it and fill the surface more emphatically
By the time of the first paintings in the Farm Near Duivendrecht series about 1905, Mondrian had simplified his brushwork and made it more structural. In our version however a richness of paint application still exists, particularly in the colorful, puffy clouds and the dappled coloration of the buildings and foreground stream. Also, Mondrian's attentiveness to the nuances of evening light was certainly a product of his youthful embrace of Impressionism.
The dominance of tree forms is a trait of Mondrian's early work that stands out immediately As well as the structural properties offered- strong vertical accents , flattened linear patterning - the tree motif must have attracted him on a deeper personal level. Later, as he developed a pointedly Theosophical philosophy of life and nature, he endowed the tree with specific symbolic meaning as a vertical link between the horizontal material world and the upper realm of pure spirituality In earlier works, the meaning of the tree form is certainly less formulated and dogmatic but carried certain urgencies of feeling nonetheless, perhaps linked with a general pantheistic outlook toward nature. We have noted the expressive role the tall trunks and branches play in Farm Near Duivendrecht. In a series of paintings and drawings from 1898 of views of the Reformed Church at Winterswijk as seen from the back of the Mondrian family home, a standard Romantic device is employed that situates a distant church against a foreground pattern of arched branches, thus intimating the religiosity of nature and its linkage with Gothic form. The conjunction of trees and manmade architecture in the Farm Near Duivendrecht and numerous other paintings of the period carries out this idea of a union between the human and natural realms. In the DMAs Castle Ruins at Brederode of 1908 (plate 5), Mondrian returns to the compositional scheme of his Reformed Church at Winterswijk , while substituting castle ruins for the church (again, a traditional Romantic subject). Here, the tree s close off almost entirely the foreground space. Their long, sweeping branches form a taut network writhing with energy through which one glimpses indistinctly the distant ruins. Apart from the brooding iconographical significance that such scenes traditionally carry, involving historical consciousness and the enduring organic power of nature versus the transient quality of mans own accomplishments, the true subject here is the
trees themselves and their entwined, flat pattern around an overlay of central arches. There is a purposeful exploitation of geometric structure
- the flat foreground screen, the strong central triangle repeated in arches and triangles in the ruins - that leaves us only a short step from the far more radical Blue Tree of circa 1909-10.
The Blue Tree (plate 6) has long been recognized as a key document in Mondrian's early development. By this point, the stippled and slashing brushwork and brilliant color of contemporary French painting had made a strong impact on the artist, and his transcendental, Theosophical views were also more fully formed. This combination resulted in the throbbing, dynamic impact of the image, with form and brushstrokes radiating outward from a dense center, as well as its particular symbolic elements (the tree itself, the upward pointing triangle, the choice of the color blue,
which has specific Theosophical meaning). Continuing from the Castle Ruins at Brederode but now much more dominant are the systematic
pattern of branches, the flattening of design, and the central placement of a strong geometric element, the triangle. Within the next few years, Mondrian would follow to a logical conclusion this process of reducing nature to its most elementary underlying structure, an investigation that revolutionized the history of modern art.
The foregoing summary indicates how central a role the Farm Near Duivendrecht played in Mondrian's artistic evolution from about 1900 to 1910. This period is generally analyzed in terms of stylistic development and chronological problems of dating. It also should be seen as a formative period rich in personal and symbolic meanings that link Mondrian with a Northern Romantic and Symbolist past and lead into his Theosophical beliefs and the spirituality that informs even his most abstract work. Regarding the precise dating of our particular version of Farm Near Duivendrecht, the evidence is not yet conclusive. In a recent article on the series, art historian Barbara Buenger divides the different known versions into three distinct groups. Works in group one, centered around a dated painting from 1905, are the most realistic in handling. Works in group two, to which our painting can be assigned, evidence greater generalization of form and a more expressive atmosphere. These works probably date from about 1908-09. Group three is comprised of paintings dating from possibly as late as 1914-16. In these, lighter and less naturalistic
hues dominate, forms take on a new degree of flat incorporeality, and the grillwork of the tree branches becomes stiffer and more abstract
than ever before. These elements presuppose Mondrian's investigations of Cubism during the years he spent in Paris from 1912 to 1914 and
thus argue for a slightly later date, after his return to Amsterdam.
While some of the earliest works in the series must have been executed wholly, or in part, from direct observation , later versions were almost certainly based on other examples still in Mondrian's possession. His repeated return to this theme indicates, on the one hand, that it may have been particularly popular with collectors, and on the other, that the theme represented a strong subjective attachment for the artist. In many ways, the series summarizes and epitomizes the main forces at work in this formative period: the give and take between naturalism and formalization, the tendency to look beyond the outer shell of nature to a mysterious and vital inner life, the theme of union between man and nature, and a striving to capture the essential aspects of any scene. In historical terms, Farm Near Duivendrecht invokes the longstanding Dutch tradition of picturesque portrayals of humble country life. However, it also shows how Mondrian rewrote that tradition by stripping away sentimental detail
and condensing form to create a more timeless image that works as much through the mind as the eye.
Excerpt from
Steven A. Nash, "Recent Gift: Piet Mondrian's 'Farm Near Duivendrecht'," Dallas Museum of Art Bulletin (Fall/Winter 1987-1988), 6-10
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: Duivendrecht (inhabited place/North Holland): TGN: 7261178
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Tate, London~Tate Kids provides an excellent way to introduce the work of Piet Mondrian to children.
- Guggenheim, New York~Learn more about the artist and his work from the Guggenheim.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- The Dallas Museum of Art also owns a drawing of this scene, Farm Near Duivendrecht, in the Evening (2017.44.1.A-B).
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 1987.359
Category
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AND
General Description
Strong lines dominate this scene of a farmhouse at twilight. The dwindling light at the end of the day creates a halo of vibrant orange around the interlocking web of barren trees, highlighting the linear patterns created by their branches.
Piet Mondrian often visited this farm near Duivendrecht, a small village near Amsterdam, and made many paintings of the building and surrounding trees. This scene captures his attentiveness to the nuances of light, shadow, and reflection. The painting simultaneously hints at the artist’s growing interest in the fl attening of forms and the linear structures of his later fully abstract paintings.
Excerpt from
Heather MacDonald, DMA label copy, 2010.
Fun Facts
- The Dallas Museum of Art also owns a drawing of this scene, Farm Near Duivendrecht, in the Evening (2017.44.1.A-B).
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Tate, London~Tate Kids provides an excellent way to introduce the work of Piet Mondrian to children.
- Guggenheim, New York~Learn more about the artist and his work from the Guggenheim.
Notes
1987.359 added to the Piction cataloguing for this DMA Bulletin (12054414)
c. 1916 (reprise of a compositional series from 1905-1908)
October 2010
Piet Mondrian is best known for the grid-like geometric abstractions he produced from about 1920 until his death in 1944. Uncompromisingly stark, relentless in their reduction of perception and ideation to a finely balanced architecture of straight lines and flat rectangular planes, these works set a new standard in modern art for purity of structure and integrity of purpose. Indeed, they have come to symbolize a whole segment of the modernist movement dedicated to idealism in pictorial expression. Within the remarkably rich Mondrian holdings in the Dallas Museum of Art, this mature phase of his career is well represented by such works as Composition with Great Blue Plane of 1921 and Place de la Concorde of 1938-43 (plate 2).
Against this radical pictorial puritanism, the naturalistic and quasi-naturalistic styles that mark Mondrians earlier development seem almost the work of an entirely different artist! Surprising are their earthy colors, attentiveness to particularities of natural form, light, and atmosphere, and variety of often quite expressive brushwork. Much less publicly familiar, such works nevertheless comprise a relatively large percentage of Mondrians total oeuvre, and moreover, relate a fascinating tale of artistic evolution that eventually led him to repudiate the natural world as a direct source of visual inspiration. Thanks to gifts from the James H. Clark family; the Museum is well endowed with works from this early period. The further development of these resources through a gift from the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation of a particularly large and beautiful early landscape, the Farm Near Duivendrecht from circa 1908-09, is therefore especially exciting . This imposing picture hung for many years in the
private collection of Mr. and Mrs. Marcus. Its gift fulfills their long felt, generous intention of sharing it with the public in the context of the
Museums other Mondrian paintings.
A moody evocation of evening calm and loneliness, Farm Near Duivendrecht (plate 3) depicts a subject that Mondrian painted and drew many times , starting about 1905. Duivendrecht is a small village on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Mondrian had studied in Amsterdam at the Academy of Fine Art and lived there intermittently beginning in 1892. His interest in nature and the rural Dutch countryside led him on frequent excursions out of the city and helped stimulate a growing emphasis on landscape painting in his artistic development. Farmhouses, groves of trees, windmills , rivers, and other pastoral subjects began during the early years of the century to supplant the figurative work that had been the staple of his academic training. Among other favorite sites, the complex of buildings and trees seen in Farm Near Duivendrecht seems to have held special interest, judging from the number of times it appears in different works over a lengthy period. Indeed, the series was so prolonged that serious
problems of dating the various versions still exist. Evidence points to a date for our particular version around the middle of the series, about 1908-09.
Together, the paintings of this farm complex comprise a particularly expressive and monumental theme in Mondrian's early years. The time of day or night, shifts from composition to composition, as does the horizon level and the overall degree of stylization of forms. But the oblique perspective onto the buildings, the dominant, central placement of the main motif and its reflected image, and most importantly, the eerie atmosphere of isolation remain much the same. In all cases, it is a landscape barren of people.' The buildings signal habitation but seem deserted. All vitality of life is focused in the rather ghostly trees that twist and writhe as they push their spidery, finger-like branches upward. In numerous landscapes by van Gogh and the great German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, similar gnarly tree s serve as a voice for what these artists saw as the soul of nature, and Mondrian must have shared to some degree these strong empathetic feelings. Luminous backlighting from the setting sun throws the central forms into even more stark relief and gives them a penumbral aura of pastel pinks, yellows, and blues that is particularly mysterious and otherworldly. Overhead glide in dark , haunting silhouette several large birds, and the smooth-flowing stream that
runs far off into the distance at the right underscores a sense of psychological and spatial isolation.
So common was Mondrian s exploration of somber lighting and mood during these years that one critic dubbed it his "evening landscape" period. Other aspects of Farm Near Duivendrecht can also be seen as typifying certain long-range stylistic developments, traceable with remarkable continuity through other early paintings in the Dallas collection. In simplified terms, Mondrian's lengthy naturalistic phase consists of an evolution from realist styles based on such models as the French Barbizon School and the Hague School of Impressionists toward greater conceptualization
and eventually, total abstraction. In this process, a soberly direct, self-effacing approach to nature is displaced by increasing degrees of personal editing and interpretation. Throughout, certain inherent traits are identifiable such as the tendency toward simplification and' order and an emphasis on underlying structural form.
An oil sketch in the DMA collection of trees along the River Gein (plate 4) shows the extent to which Impressionism had loosened up Mondrian's tighter naturalistic style by about 1903. This work has the sense of spontaneity and direct observation of a sketch done fully "on the spot." Its short, blurred strokes, earthy colors, and a totally undramatic subject, mark most of the landscapes of this period, which are devoted to candid portrayals of the countryside in its most humble aspects. It is interesting to note, however, that certain features already anticipate the composition of the Farm Near Duivendrecht, such as the strict centering of the main motif, the use of a foreground reflection to create a mirror image, the emphasis
on linear tree branches, the alignment of those branches to produce a flattened pattern, and the cropping of design by the picture frame to anchor it and fill the surface more emphatically
By the time of the first paintings in the Farm Near Duivendrecht series about 1905, Mondrian had simplified his brushwork and made it more structural. In our version however a richness of paint application still exists, particularly in the colorful, puffy clouds and the dappled coloration of the buildings and foreground stream. Also, Mondrian's attentiveness to the nuances of evening light was certainly a product of his youthful embrace of Impressionism.
The dominance of tree forms is a trait of Mondrian's early work that stands out immediately As well as the structural properties offered- strong vertical accents , flattened linear patterning - the tree motif must have attracted him on a deeper personal level. Later, as he developed a pointedly Theosophical philosophy of life and nature, he endowed the tree with specific symbolic meaning as a vertical link between the horizontal material world and the upper realm of pure spirituality In earlier works, the meaning of the tree form is certainly less formulated and dogmatic but carried certain urgencies of feeling nonetheless, perhaps linked with a general pantheistic outlook toward nature. We have noted the expressive role the tall trunks and branches play in Farm Near Duivendrecht. In a series of paintings and drawings from 1898 of views of the Reformed Church at Winterswijk as seen from the back of the Mondrian family home, a standard Romantic device is employed that situates a distant church against a foreground pattern of arched branches, thus intimating the religiosity of nature and its linkage with Gothic form. The conjunction of trees and manmade architecture in the Farm Near Duivendrecht and numerous other paintings of the period carries out this idea of a union between the human and natural realms. In the DMAs Castle Ruins at Brederode of 1908 (plate 5), Mondrian returns to the compositional scheme of his Reformed Church at Winterswijk , while substituting castle ruins for the church (again, a traditional Romantic subject). Here, the tree s close off almost entirely the foreground space. Their long, sweeping branches form a taut network writhing with energy through which one glimpses indistinctly the distant ruins. Apart from the brooding iconographical significance that such scenes traditionally carry, involving historical consciousness and the enduring organic power of nature versus the transient quality of mans own accomplishments, the true subject here is the
trees themselves and their entwined, flat pattern around an overlay of central arches. There is a purposeful exploitation of geometric structure
- the flat foreground screen, the strong central triangle repeated in arches and triangles in the ruins - that leaves us only a short step from the far more radical Blue Tree of circa 1909-10.
The Blue Tree (plate 6) has long been recognized as a key document in Mondrian's early development. By this point, the stippled and slashing brushwork and brilliant color of contemporary French painting had made a strong impact on the artist, and his transcendental, Theosophical views were also more fully formed. This combination resulted in the throbbing, dynamic impact of the image, with form and brushstrokes radiating outward from a dense center, as well as its particular symbolic elements (the tree itself, the upward pointing triangle, the choice of the color blue,
which has specific Theosophical meaning). Continuing from the Castle Ruins at Brederode but now much more dominant are the systematic
pattern of branches, the flattening of design, and the central placement of a strong geometric element, the triangle. Within the next few years, Mondrian would follow to a logical conclusion this process of reducing nature to its most elementary underlying structure, an investigation that revolutionized the history of modern art.
The foregoing summary indicates how central a role the Farm Near Duivendrecht played in Mondrian's artistic evolution from about 1900 to 1910. This period is generally analyzed in terms of stylistic development and chronological problems of dating. It also should be seen as a formative period rich in personal and symbolic meanings that link Mondrian with a Northern Romantic and Symbolist past and lead into his Theosophical beliefs and the spirituality that informs even his most abstract work. Regarding the precise dating of our particular version of Farm Near Duivendrecht, the evidence is not yet conclusive. In a recent article on the series, art historian Barbara Buenger divides the different known versions into three distinct groups. Works in group one, centered around a dated painting from 1905, are the most realistic in handling. Works in group two, to which our painting can be assigned, evidence greater generalization of form and a more expressive atmosphere. These works probably date from about 1908-09. Group three is comprised of paintings dating from possibly as late as 1914-16. In these, lighter and less naturalistic
hues dominate, forms take on a new degree of flat incorporeality, and the grillwork of the tree branches becomes stiffer and more abstract
than ever before. These elements presuppose Mondrian's investigations of Cubism during the years he spent in Paris from 1912 to 1914 and
thus argue for a slightly later date, after his return to Amsterdam.
While some of the earliest works in the series must have been executed wholly, or in part, from direct observation , later versions were almost certainly based on other examples still in Mondrian's possession. His repeated return to this theme indicates, on the one hand, that it may have been particularly popular with collectors, and on the other, that the theme represented a strong subjective attachment for the artist. In many ways, the series summarizes and epitomizes the main forces at work in this formative period: the give and take between naturalism and formalization, the tendency to look beyond the outer shell of nature to a mysterious and vital inner life, the theme of union between man and nature, and a striving to capture the essential aspects of any scene. In historical terms, Farm Near Duivendrecht invokes the longstanding Dutch tradition of picturesque portrayals of humble country life. However, it also shows how Mondrian rewrote that tradition by stripping away sentimental detail
and condensing form to create a more timeless image that works as much through the mind as the eye.
Excerpt from
Steven A. Nash, "Recent Gift: Piet Mondrian's 'Farm Near Duivendrecht'," Dallas Museum of Art Bulletin (Fall/Winter 1987-1988), 6-10
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: Duivendrecht (inhabited place/North Holland): TGN: 7261178
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
rules
Apply To
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