Mondrian Trees Reflected
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
![Mondrian landscape](https://rachelecohen.com/images/blog/blog946-20200519105117.jpg)
Piet Mondrian, Farm Near Duivendrecht, c.1916. Art Institute of Chicago. Detail photos Rachel Cohen.
This entry was written for, and is up today at, zoeryanprojects, more information below.
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I walked by this Mondrian one day at the Art Institute, just wandering with a friend.
![](https://rachelecohen.com/images/blog/IMG_6690.jpg)
I am tall, and she is taller, carries herself like a long line and speaks in lineated prose, and, although she was in another room when I happened on this painting, the elongation of space was a part of my impression.
I first became aware of the significance of trees for Mondrian at the great MoMA retrospective, which I am surprised to realize was in 1995-1996. Its insights have remained quite present for me.
![](https://rachelecohen.com/images/blog/IMG_6684.jpg)
In that show, I felt you could watch Mondrian working through trees to come to the abstraction that mattered to him. He painted trees often, and often reflected in water, a common sight in the watery Netherlands.
![](https://rachelecohen.com/images/blog/IMG_6689.jpg)
And the lines began to come apart. He got something crucial from a Picasso and Braque exhibition in 1911, but it also just came from working with trees.
![](https://rachelecohen.com/images/blog/IMG_6685.jpg)
This painting is a bit later, 1916, perhaps more representational then some of the work he was then doing, but, the way he has chosen to make a painting here, the vibrant possibilities of abstraction run all through it.
![](https://rachelecohen.com/images/blog/IMG_6686.jpg)
I love the reflection, how the house and trees in the water may give a deeper understanding than the house and trees in the air.
![](https://rachelecohen.com/images/blog/IMG_6687.jpg)
And the lines, the thick-knotted lines.
![](https://rachelecohen.com/images/blog/IMG_6691.jpg)
Zoë Ryan, Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago, is collecting reflections by people from Chicago and beyond on works in the Art Institute's collection. I was delighted to contribute this entry. zoeryanprojects is on instagram at zoeryanprojects, on twitter at @zoeryanprojects.