Six young birch trees in a field

Six young birch trees in a field of 1902 is an unusually precise and counted subject — the specific number of trees is part of the title's logic, suggesting this was a deliberate compositional study of repeated similar forms at varied intervals. The young birches, with their characteristic pale bark and lightweight branch structure, offered Mondrian a subject between the pollarded willows he painted frequently and the abstract tree studies he would begin in 1908. The spacing of six vertical forms across an open field ground anticipates the rhythm and repetition that would become central to his abstract work. This is one of the most forward-looking of his early paintings.

The six trunks create a rhythm of pale verticals across the horizontal field ground — a proto-abstract compositional device. Each tree is individually characterised in terms of thickness and height while remaining part of the series. The flat field and open sky provide a neutral ground against which the tree forms are clearly legible. Paint is applied with restraint and precision.