Piet Mondriaan artwork • watercolour • drawing • previously for sale View of the Amstel

Before Mondrian made the abstract compositions with which he became famous, he drew and painted landscapes, figures, flowers and still-lifes in a naturalist style. Between 1895 and 1908, he gradually detached himself from exact pictorial representation and experimented with colour, composition and a simplifying of forms. This ultimately led to depicting nature in abstract vertical and horizontal lines and planes in primary colours.