Willows bordering an irrigation ditch near a haystack

Willows bordering an irrigation ditch near a haystack of 1903 combines three characteristic Dutch landscape elements — pollarded willows, irrigation infrastructure, and a harvested haystack — into a composition that reads almost as an inventory of the Dutch agricultural environment. Mondrian was conducting an intensive visual survey of his native landscape during this period, working along the Gein and in the polder regions, building a thorough pictorial vocabulary before abandoning it entirely for abstraction. The haystack behind the willows creates a secondary focal point that adds depth and narrative to an otherwise purely horizontal composition.

The willows and haystack are complementary forms — the organic, rounded crown of the willows rhyming with the similarly rounded stack below. The irrigation ditch provides the foreground horizontal. Paint is applied with confidence: the willow foliage in broken, varied strokes; the haystack in smoother, curved passages suggesting its compacted form.