By the Sea

In 1909 the painter whose name now means white canvas ruled by black lines and blocks of primary colour was standing on a Dutch beach, working from the water in front of him. Mondrian made this small panel at Domburg, the Zeeland resort where he spent his summers, years before any grid. The subject is almost nothing, a low horizon, a strip of sand, the flat sea, and that emptiness suited him. He was already paring a scene down to its horizontals, and the Zeeland coast gave him little else to hold on to. The colour is keyed far above nature, closer to the broken touches of the Dutch Luminists he knew. It is painted on cardboard rather than canvas, and measures about 40 by 46 centimetres.