Forest, 1899, watercolor and gouache on paper, The Hague Art Museum Collection.

The title of this painting is Forest, but it’s not just trees that Piet Mondrian wanted to depict. We are looking at a hill littered with brown leaves and greenish tree trunks. The trees are only partially visible; the leafless trunks build rhythmically toward the top of the hill. Mondrian seems to want to emphasize the vertical lines of the forest.

Mondrian uses the almost systematic repetition of trees more frequently after 1900. It is a preparation for his later geometric abstraction, in which he constantly repeats lines and areas of color. The light penetrating down through the leaves further lightens the dark red of the ground and the mossy green of the trees. Once at the top, the color contrast is heightened. The light blue indicates a clearing in the forest.