Evening; Red Tree (Avond; De rode boom) is an oil on canvas painting created by the Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian in 1908.[1] This painting is commonly referred to as The Red Tree. This piece of artwork displays an expressionist drawing of an apple tree with branches that spread wide across the page.[2]The Red Tree is the first painting in Mondrian’s Trees series, which defined an important period of evolution in Mondrian’s artwork as he transitioned to neoplasticism.[2] Mondrian uses The Red Tree to express his views of nature and reality as a complex equilibrium between harsh motion and quiet stillness.[1] This painting displays non-naturalistic colors and simplified tones of red and blue.[3]The Red Tree stretches 27” by 39” and can be found on display at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.[1]
Background
Prior to 1907, Piet Mondrian’s works were considered conventional with the trends of the time and well-received by the public.[4] However, in 1907 Mondrian became unsatisfied and his artwork began to change. Mondrian attended a Vincent van Gogh retrospective in 1905 and drew inspiration from van Gogh’s unconventional use of pure colors and gestural brushstrokes.[4] While undergoing his stylistic shift, Mondrian repeatedly used the subject matter of trees, inspired by the poet, Émile Veraeren’s “L’Abre.”[4] In "L'Abre" work, Mondrian saw a shared vision of trees as a powerful source for both the earth and the sky.[4] During this time, society viewed trees as the symbol of the life force as their roots are in the water and earth, and they feed on the air around them.[4] Notably, Mondrian painted a leafless tree that emphasized strong lines and planes so as to not blur the relationship between the articulate lines of the tree and those of the leaf.[4] Throughout the Trees series, Mondrian continued to simplify the trees and emphasize strong lines until the trees appear to be merely vertical lines with dispersed horizontal lines as branches, foreshadowing his neoplasticism era.[2]
Piet Mondrian, 1872-1944
Composition
In creating The Red Tree, Mondrian depicts only one tree, producing a potent image by increasing the focus on the conflicting and interconnecting forces of trunk, branches, and space.[3] Mondrian’s tree, much like those of van Gogh, twists in its growth, branching out across the air as smaller, twisting, extensions.[3] Specifically, there exists a resolution of opposites in the manner in which the foreground of the tree’s trunk and branches extend into the empty space of the background to create an effect of interplay.[3] Mondrian uses a firm and solid manner of depicting the tree and the space around it, allowing the two components to tightly combine across the flat canvas.[3] The way in which the small branches of the tree stretch up and spread across both sides of the canvas generates a cross-like arrangement with nature.[3] The tree remains in conflict as forces of air and light pull it upwards toward growth and expansion, and gravity pulls it down into dispersal and decay.[3] To Mondrian, The Red Tree is not a simple impression of a tree, but rather an interpretation of reality and nature as a whole.[1] Through a linear structure and straightened spatial effect, the scene presents a flat representation.[1] This emphasizes the contrast of the tree’s violent movement with the overarching calm of the painting to create a balance in which Mondrian hoped to triumph.[1]
Color and Brushwork
Mondrian’s style evolution at the time was characterized by his emphasis on color and his revolt against tonalism.[1] Through a strong simplification of the color range to tones of red and blue, The Red Tree represents Mondrian’s movement toward non-naturalistic colors.[1] He believed that it was not possible to reproduce the colors of nature on a canvas and thus looked to pure color to express nature’s beauty differently.[4] He relied on color to create spatial contrast and produce images that were not simply descriptive, but also to create a symbolic and evocative effect.[1] This is seen through the intense and suggestive contrast of the red forcefully standing out of the receding blue.[1] Mondrian also turned to the application of paint to create depth. His rhythmic and opaque application indicates a greater sense of substance both in the tree and the space around it.[3] His strong but somewhat interrupted brushstrokes draw comparisons similar to that of a pointillist painting.[3] However, rather than creating an optical effect that causes the brushstrokes to blend in the viewer’s eye like in pointillism, Mondrian uses larger brushstrokes and two dominant contrasting colors to remove aspects of daylight and produce a mystical effect.[3]
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