16 - Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian Farmhouse Along the Water Shielded by Arch of Trees I (Geinrust Farm) Circa 1902-1903 Oil on canvas. 31.1 x 40 cm. Framed under glass. Unsigned. - Minimal shrinkage cracks, barely visible; inconspicuous retouching in the upper right corner. Welsh 1998 A 348; Ottolenghi 140 (here with slight differing dimensions and date) Provenance J.S.F. Esser and heirs; private collection, Monaco Exhibitions Paris 1969 (Orangerie des Tuileries), Mondrian, cat. no. 8; The Hague/Washington D.C./New York 1995/1996 (Haags Gemeentemuseum/National Gallery of Art/Museum of Modern Art), Piet Mondrian. 1872-1944, cat. no. 4. Literature Robert P. Welsh, Piet Mondrian's Early Career. The "Naturalistic" Periods, (Dissertation 1965), New York, London 1977, S. 85-87, ill. no. 131; Ibid., Mondriaan an de Amstel. De Kunstenaar aan het werk, in: Mondriaan in Amsterdam, exhib.cat. Gemeentearchief, Amsterdam 1994, p. 132 “Geinrust Farm”, which has been repeatedly internationally exhibited and mentioned in the secondary literature, was created after Mondrian completed his studies at the Rijksakademie. During excursions to the countryside outside Amsterdam and to Het Gein, he found inspiration in “little farmsteads surrounded by groups of trees and situated along the water” (L.J.F. Wijsenbeek, Piet Mondrian, p. 11). Or, in the words of Robert Welsh: “It is important to realize Mondriaan’s ongoing contact with the physical environment of Amsterdam and its surroundings. His own vision of the physical and spiritual worlds which informed his art were grounded first of all in his experiences there” (Welsh, Piet Mondriaan the Amsterdam Years, p. 62). At the same time, his landscapes – unlike those of his contemporaries – were not a purely objective reproduction of the landscape; instead, they were “[…] an interplay between larger shapes. He saw […] the landscape he found before him, with its groups of trees, houses, etc., as a structure of masses that he emphatically juxtaposed with one another […]” (L.J.F. Wijsenbeek, ibid.). In “Geinrust Farm”, the upper edge of the horizontal strip formed by the hedge in front of the farmhouse, the area of grass in front of the hedge, the canal and another area of grass in front of the canal lies about 11.5 cm above the lower edge of the picture. Because the painting is 30 cm high, the position of the edge just described exactly corresponds to the Golden Section. This is no coincidence. Instead, it is the result of a working method rigorously based on compositional rules and not primarily defined by the wish to create a “realistic” image: this method is also characteristic of Mondrian’s early work and points to his later abstractions. In his text “Evolution. Space and Plane”, Ulf Küster writes that, even in his early works, Mondrian “gave careful consideration to the structuring of the picture surface to create a coherent composition: an aspect that became increasingly important as his art developed“ (in: exhib. cat. Mondrian Evolution, Kunstslg. NRW/Fondation Beyeler 2022/2023, p. 14). In keeping with this, the crowns of the group of trees and the diagonals formed out of the foliage and tree trunks to the left and right of them form a quarter circle. Its centre lies precisely in the middle of the lower edge of the painting. At the same time – in this work and others like it from this period and the area around Het Gein –, Mondrian succeeds in generating an image of the farmstead and the muted atmosphere typical of his work from this time. Several years later, in 1906, he returned to this composition and created variations on it in a drawing and three paintings (Welsh 1998 A 440-442 and 444). In these works, the dominant horizontals are placed approximately in the middle of the picture, the farm and trees are reflected in the water lying in front of the house and a symmetrical, oval form emerges (see comp. ill.). In 1912, Mondrian created a larger, cubist landscape that is now housed in the Kunstmuseum Den Haag and takes up both elements: the horizontal and the semicircle in the upper half of the picture (see comp. ill.).