↗France, late 19th century-early 20th century · c. 1915–26
Water Lilies (Agapanthus)
Claude Monet
Colour palette
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Approximate colour proportions
Estimated from six colour groups in the museum image, including visible paper or borders. Reproduction and lighting affect the result; these are image-area proportions, not pigment measurements.
Gift of Frank Stella · The Cleveland Museum of Art
Image licence: CC0 · Museum record & image source ↗
Netherlands · c. 1907
Field with Young Trees in the Foreground
- Date
- c. 1907
- Medium
- oil on paper laid on board
- Dimensions
- Framed: 82.5 x 97 x 5.8 cm (32 1/2 x 38 3/16 x 2 5/16 in.); Unframed: 65.7 x 72 cm (25 7/8 x 28 3/8 in.)
- Country / context
- Netherlands
- Movement / tradition
- European and American art
- Collection
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Attribution / role
- Museum attribution
- Pathway
- European and American art ↗
FROM THE MUSEUM
This painting depicts a field around the hamlet of Oele in the eastern Netherlands, where Mondrian lived during the summer of 1907. The evocative mood created by the trees silhouetted against a twilight sky suggests that Mondrian’s search for spirituality was present before he began painting completely abstract or non-objective compositions in 1916. Guided by readings in metaphysics and philosophy, Mondrian sought to achieve a higher spiritual reality in his paintings, which eventually led him to eliminate all representational elements in favor of a style of pure geometric abstraction.
Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0Place in the artist’s career
The 1905 and 1907 landscapes retain trees and fields, while the 1927 composition abandons descriptive scenery. Oil remains the medium, so the decisive changes concern representation, edge and colour relationships. Ask which earlier arrangements of verticals, horizontals and intervals continue to matter after recognisable objects disappear.
The artist’s practice
Artist-wide context; individual works may differ.
Media and surface
Oil painting remains a constant while representation changes from landscape to abstraction.
Marks and structure
Verticals, horizontals and carefully adjusted intervals replace descriptive trees and fields.
Palette and light
Primary colour areas and neutral spaces create dynamic balance rather than imitate natural light.
A MOMENT TO LOOK
Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?
Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.
