by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on September 28, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
About the painting
Piet Mondrian's Composition No. II is a wide, intricate field of short black lines and muted colour. Small rectangles and irregularly spaced bars gather densely near the centre, then thin toward the gray outer areas. The visible result is almost abstract, but a museum exhibition study traces its design to Mondrian's earlier view of the Geinrust farm and river near Amsterdam. RKD identifies the painting as B42, dated 1913, at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, inventory 530-14. The image on this page matches RKD's reproduction of that exact work.[1][2]
At a glance
- ArtistPiet Mondrian (Piet Mondriaan, 1872–1944)
- TitleComposition No. II (Compositie no. II)
- Date1913; reworked after a 1914 Prague exhibition
- MediumOil on canvas
- Dimensions88 × 115 cm, as reported by a museum-partnered reproduction source
- CollectionKröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, inventory 530-14
- Catalogue numberRKD B42[1][2][3]
Composition No. II among Mondrian's early abstractions
Contents
- What does the painting look like?
- How is it connected to Geinrust Farm?
- Why was the painting changed after Prague?
- Is this a De Stijl painting or another Composition No. II?
What does the painting look like?
The canvas is landscape-shaped, considerably wider than it is tall. A busy network of black strokes occupies its middle. Some verticals extend through several rows; others stop after enclosing a single small rectangle. Horizontal marks likewise vary in length and spacing. The resulting shapes are not equal tiles. Near the centre they are tightly packed, while toward the left and right edges larger, paler spaces appear and the lines seem to dissolve into the ground.
Look at the colour before trying to find a subject. Cream, gray, pale blue-green, soft yellow and touches of warm pink or ochre move through the network. The colour is less forceful than the red, blue and yellow rectangles of Mondrian's later works. Some fields look lightly filled, while others retain a gray cast. These distinctions produce a lively surface without one dominant coloured block. Reproductions vary in tone, so a screen image should not be treated as a precise record of the original pigments.
The lower half has long, narrow pale forms among more compact rectangles. A few black lines pass through several of them, then end before reaching the edge. The centre seems more organized than the margins, but even there the strokes do not settle into a perfectly regular grid. Mondrian lets the outer field fade rather than sealing every shape inside a hard border. The eye can begin at one crossing and follow a broken path toward another, only to find it interrupted by a different colour or an open gray interval.
The composition has a wide physical scale: a museum-partnered reproduction source gives 88 × 115 cm for the oil-on-canvas original. At that size, the many small divisions would be more bodily present than in the 400-pixel image on this page. The measurement is useful context, while the RKD's B42 and museum inventory establish the object's identity.[3][1]
How is it connected to Geinrust Farm?
The Museo Reina Sofía's Mondrian & De Stijl publication relates this painting to an earlier drawing of the Geinrust Farm river view near Amsterdam. It explains that the source scene's basic subject is no longer recognizable in the finished Composition No. II. The painting reorganizes what had been a river, farm and surrounding vegetation into horizontal and vertical lines, coloured areas and the spaces between them. The connection is documented by the exhibition essay; it is not a claim that every visible rectangle can be identified as a particular tree, wall or reflection.[2]
This helps make sense of the network without reducing the picture to a hidden landscape puzzle. A long horizontal can evoke a riverbank or reflection once the source is known, but it also serves as a line that holds several coloured fields together. A short vertical may recall a tree trunk, yet its role within the painting depends on where it ends and what crosses it. Mondrian transformed an observed arrangement rather than copying it as a conventional view.
A maker working with the Kröller-Müller Museum likewise describes the farm, riverside trees and their reflection as the earlier imagery reduced to surfaces, lines and colours. The museum's own page identifies the 1913 painting among its Mondrian holdings. Together with RKD's catalogue entry, these sources support a specific work and subject lineage rather than a generic claim that all early Mondrian grids came from nature.[3][4][1]
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Watch on YouTubeWhy was the painting changed after Prague?
According to the Reina Sofía study, Mondrian sent the work to an exhibition in Prague around New Year's Day 1914 while it was still newly completed. It appeared there as catalogue number 73. After the painting returned, he worked on it again. The study stresses that we cannot know exactly how the Prague version looked. It describes later adjustments to the frame, gray paint softening the outer edges, and coloured highlights near the centre in green, yellow and red tones mixed with gray.[2]
That sequence explains why the current image should not automatically be presented as the exact painting Prague visitors saw. The softened margins and small colours that now help organize the work belong to its documented later appearance. The museum essay bases its discussion partly on Mondrian and Cubism: Paris 1912–1914, including research on this painting. The dates 1913 and 1914 therefore refer to different parts of its history: the accepted date of creation and the subsequent exhibition and reworking.[2]
The frame deserves special care in a small reproduction. The published account says Mondrian replaced an earlier corbel frame with slats still associated with the work. Any pale strip visible around an online photograph should be distinguished from the painted gray edges inside the composition. What matters for looking at the canvas is the way the lines and colour become less dense toward its sides, an effect the essay specifically links to the artist's reworking.[2]
Is this a De Stijl painting or another Composition No. II?
It predates De Stijl. The Kröller-Müller Museum says Mondrian met Theo van Doesburg in 1916 and that De Stijl was founded in 1917. This 1913 canvas belongs to his earlier path through Cubism and toward abstraction. Its short, varied marks and subdued palette are unlike the more spare, hard-edged arrangements associated with his later De Stijl years. Calling it an early step toward that visual language is fair; assigning it to a movement that did not yet exist would blur the chronology.[4][1]
The title is also easy to confuse. RKD lists this Otterlo canvas as B42, Composition no. II. Its same 1913 catalogue sequence includes separate works called Gemälde no. II at MoMA (B36) and at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (B39). The site's Composition II is yet another painting, B129, dated 1921. Similar numerals do not make their sizes, collections or images interchangeable.[1]
Another useful comparison is the site's Composition 10 in Black and White, painted in 1915. The later black-and-white sea-and-pier work also uses many short crossing marks, but its palette and source differ. In Composition No. II, the muted patches of colour and the documented Geinrust lineage remain central to understanding its 1913 experiment.[1]
Mondrian artworks directory
Frequently asked questions
When was Composition No. II painted?
Where is the original painting?
It belongs to the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo as inventory 530-14.[1]
What is its material and size?
It is oil on canvas. A source producing reproductions in cooperation with the museum gives 88 × 115 cm for the original.[3]
Does the picture show a farm?
The Reina Sofía study relates it to a drawing of the Geinrust Farm river view, while emphasizing that the original subject is no longer recognizable in the finished abstract composition.[2]
Is it the same as Painting No. II at MoMA or the Stedelijk?
No. This Kröller-Müller canvas is RKD B42. The similarly numbered 1913 paintings at MoMA and the Stedelijk are B36 and B39 respectively.[1]
Discussion
Does the dense central web or the pale outer fields first hold your attention?
Reader Insights
Follow one short black mark from the centre toward the gray margin. Where does your eye stop?
Which muted colour patch changes your sense of the central line network?
How does this Geinrust-derived painting differ from 1915 Composition 10 in Black and White?
Join the Conversation
Share what you notice in this painting below.
References
- RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, digital Mondrian catalogue raisonné, Paris 1912–14, B42 Composition no. II and distinct B36/B39 records. View source.
- Museo Reina Sofía, Mondrian & De Stijl, exhibition publication, discussion of Composition No. II, Geinrust Farm and the Prague exhibition, p. 67. View source.
- Dutch Art Reproductions, Composition No. II, made in cooperation with the Kröller-Müller Museum, stating original medium, size and source imagery. View source.
- Kröller-Müller Museum, Mondrian collection overview, labelling Compositie no. II as 1913 and dating Mondrian's De Stijl involvement. View source.
- Lead image credit. Piet Mondrian, Composition No. II, 1913, reworked after its Prague exhibition in 1914, oil on canvas, 88 × 115 cm, RKD B42; Kröller-Müller Museum 530-14.
 The Red Tree Piet Mondrian.jpg)
