Farm near Duivendrecht

Mondrian came back to this same farm outside Amsterdam again and again for more than ten years, painting its low roof and the bare trees around it in every kind of light. This version is dated 1916, and the timing matters. He had crossed to the Netherlands on a visit in 1914, war had broken out across Europe, and he found himself stranded, unable to return to his studio in Paris. Within about a year he and a few others would launch De Stijl and push on into pure grids of line and colour. Here he is still looking at a real place, though you can feel where he is heading. The trees have become a tight web of verticals and horizontals, and the farmhouse sits low and flat against the dusk, doubled in the still water below.