On the Ringdijk, Watergraafsmeer

On the Ringdijk, Watergraafsmeer (1902) records a specific location in the polder landscape east of Amsterdam—the Ringdijk, the encircling dike of the Watergraafsmeer, a polder originally reclaimed from a lake in the seventeenth century. The Watergraafsmeer polder, now absorbed into the city of Amsterdam, was then a rural agricultural area, and the Ringdijk with its associated canal and landscape offered the characteristic Dutch polder scenery of flat fields, ditches, and a wide sky. Mondrian's topographically specific landscapes of this period show his careful documentation of the Dutch landscape immediately surrounding Amsterdam.

The Ringdijk composition would emphasize the straight geometry of the dike line against the flat polder landscape—a strong horizontal element dividing canal or road from open field. The characteristic Dutch polder flatness maximizes sky area, which Mondrian treats with attention to its cloud formations and tonal gradations.