Piet mondrian gray tree biography of martin

The Gray Tree is one of the first paintings in which Mondrian applied to a natural subject the principles of cubist composition that he was in the process of assimilating and working out in his own way.

At the same time, it is a continuation of the series on the Tree theme, which began with the studies for the Red Tree of 1908. Although four years elapsed between the Red Tree and The Gray Tree, it would be a mistake not to see them like two links in a single chain of development.

Actually, there are a few additional links in the chain connecting the luminist version of 1908, with its bold red and blue, and the cubist one of 1912, in which color has receded almost completely, and form and rhythm dominates.

These additional links date from Mondrian's Zeeland period and comprise a number of little works that reached a highpoint in the Blue Tree, probably created in 1910, the same year in which other motifs - dunes,