Willows bordering a watercourse, buildings left and right

Willows bordering a watercourse, buildings left and right of 1902 places Mondrian within a specifically Dutch iconographic tradition: the pollarded willows alongside Dutch waterways were among the most characteristic elements of the landscape, so thoroughly depicted by generations of Dutch painters that they carried almost totemic significance. Mondrian's early engagement with these trees forms part of his intensive study of the Dutch landscape before his radical stylistic departure around 1908–1910. The buildings flanking the watercourse suggest a village or farm setting, providing architectural anchors at the composition's edges.

The willows are painted with careful attention to their distinctive pollarded forms — the bulbous crowns and multiple stems characteristic of this management practice. Reflections in the watercourse are suggested through downward-dragged strokes that loosely mirror the tree forms above. The buildings are rendered summarily, their details less resolved than the vegetation.