Leuchtturm in Westkapelle

Before Piet Mondrian became the painter of white grids and blocks of red, yellow and blue, he spent summers on the Dutch coast of Zeeland painting a lighthouse. This is the tall tower at Westkapelle, which he first saw around 1908 while staying in the nearby village of Domburg. In this version the brushwork is loose and broken into short strokes, close to the divided-colour style of older Dutch painters he admired. He was testing how far he could simplify the tower and still keep it standing against the sky. Over these years he painted and drew the same Westkapelle lighthouse at least five times, each one reduced a little further than the last.