Description
This painting depicts a field around the hamlet of Oele in the eastern Netherlands, where Mondrian lived during the summer of 1907. The evocative mood created by the trees silhouetted against a twilight sky suggests that Mondrian’s search for spirituality was present before he began painting completely abstract or non-objective compositions in 1916. Guided by readings in metaphysics and philosophy, Mondrian sought to achieve a higher spiritual reality in his paintings, which eventually led him to eliminate all representational elements in favor of a style of pure geometric abstraction.
Provenance
Frank Stella [1936- ] New York, NY by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art (-1971); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1971-)
Accession Number
1971.220
Medium
oil on paper laid on board
Dimensions
Framed: 82.5 x 97 x 5.8 cm (32 1/2 x 38 3/16 x 2 5/16 in.); Unframed: 65.7 x 72 cm (25 7/8 x 28 3/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of Frank Stella
Tags
Painting Early Modern (1901–1950) Oil Painting Board Dutch Color: Brown
Background & Context
Background Story
Field with Young Trees in the Foreground from c. 1907 is an early landscape by Mondrian, painted before he had begun the progression from naturalistic landscape to abstract Neoplasticism that would define his career. The painting depicts a Dutch landscape with the young trees of the title in the foreground, rendered in a Post-Impressionist style that shows the influence of Jan Toorop and other Dutch Symbolists. The c. 1907 date places this at the very beginning of Mondrian's career, when he was still working within the tradition of Dutch landscape painting and had not yet encountered the Cubist and abstract ideas that would transform his art after 1911.
Cultural Impact
Mondrian's early landscapes are important because they document the starting point from which his evolution toward abstract Neoplasticism began. Field with Young Trees in the Foreground from c. 1907 shows the Post-Impressionist style that was Mondrian's point of departure—the Post-Impressionist landscape would be transformed through Cubism into the abstract grid compositions that define his mature work, and this early landscape is the naturalistic beginning of that extraordinary progression.
Why It Matters
Field with Young Trees in the Foreground is Mondrian before abstraction: a Dutch landscape in Post-Impressionist style that shows the starting point from which his evolution toward Neoplasticism began. The c. 1907 painting is the naturalistic beginning of the extraordinary progression that would take Mondrian from Post-Impressionist landscape to the most rigorous abstract art of the 20th century.
