Farm Sun 1904

Piet Mondrian made this watercolour, Farm Sun, at an unknown date. There’s a tentative, searching quality to these marks. Look at how the buildings are described with these loose, almost scribbled lines, and how the colours are translucent, as if the sun is bleaching them out. It's like he's trying to find the essence of the farm, not just copy what he sees. The paper has this beautiful, almost velvety texture that the watercolour enhances. The pigment pools and settles in the crevices, creating these subtle variations in tone and intensity. See the way the light glances off the roof? There's this sense of shifting light, of a fleeting moment captured in time. That thin application of paint is so important. There's almost nothing there, and yet it holds so much. Later, Mondrian became famous for his grids and blocks of colour. Seeing this makes me wonder what was going on in his head as he made it. It’s a reminder that even the most radical art comes from somewhere, and that the journey is just as important as the destination.