| A Farmhouse Behind a Fence | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Piet Mondrian  |
| Year | c. 1904 |
| Medium | oil paint, canvas |
| Dimensions | 20.5 cm (8.1 in) × 29.1 cm (11.5 in) |
| Collection | Unknown, Kunstmuseum Den Haag |
| Identifiers | RKDimages ID: 279649 |
A Farmhouse Behind A Fence is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, from 1904. [1] It was completed early in his career, in 1904, when "the artist abruptly broke from his former life and went into rural seclusion in Brabant, a province in southern Netherlands." [2] He painted numerous canvases on a rural theme: "in his initial public appearances as a professional artist Mondrian was more concerned with supplying a product that would sell than defining his own personal style." [3]
Such paintings were before he developed the now more familiar abstract visual approach of the De Stijl movement. Nevertheless, the painting still shows the beginning of Mondrian's evolution: during this period "he produced paintings of traditional subject matter—Dutch farmhouses and windmills and rivers and forests—but rendered these themes in a very untraditional way ... [he] composed his representations, rather, out of bold abstract planes and broad brushstrokes of saturated colour." [2]
Despite the existence of a signature at the bottom left of the canvas, it was only attributed to Mondrian in 2004, by the art historian Joop Joosten. [4] The painting was added to the collection of the Kunstmuseum, in The Hague, in 2020. [4] It was acquired from a private collection hanging in Hoorn. [5]