From landscape to abstraction · 1908 -1914

From the red trunk to the gray tree and then to cubist networks, Mondrian uses the tree as a laboratory to move from visible nature to abstract structure.

Piet Mondrian was born in the Netherlands in 1872 and died in New York in 1944. Before the black grids and primary colors that made him famous, he devoted numerous paintings to trees, the banks of the Gein and the landscapes of Zeeland. Around 1908 -1910, the Red Tree transformed a natural motif into an expressive arabesque through the opposition of red and blue. The Gray Tree of 1911 then reduced the palette and fragmented branches and background under the influence of cubism discovered in Paris. In 1912, the Apple Tree in Flowers then pushed this dissolution further: the trunk remained perceptible, but the image already functioned as a network of lines, ovals and planes. The tree compositions that follow gradually erase the object without abandoning its growth principle. Roots, trunk and branches offer Mondrian an ideal model for seeking balance between verticals, horizontals and multiple rhythms. The "Trees of Piet Mondrian" selection notably compares Tree A - Piet Mondrian and Trees in Flowers - Piet Mondrian. His reading favors color.

The tree gives Mondrian the decisive passage: still rooted in nature, it gradually becomes an autonomous architecture of lines and relationships.