Twee Boom Silhouetten achter een Waterloop 1900 - 1902

Piet Mondrian painted “Twee Boom Silhouetten achter een Waterloop” with oil on canvas, capturing trees behind a waterway. The color palette here is so subdued. It’s kind of like a hushed symphony of greens and browns, with touches of light blue in the sky, reflecting in the water. I can imagine Mondrian standing there, squinting, trying to capture the essence of the scene with each brushstroke. Those thin branches feel so vulnerable! They're reaching up, almost like asking a question. Maybe the question is, what does it mean to be a tree? Or, what does it mean to be alive? You can see how Mondrian’s earlier representational work, with its muted tones and contemplative atmosphere, would lead to his later experiments with abstraction. It's like he's always searching for the underlying structure, the essential form.