Farm along the river Gein

Farm along the river Gein of 1902 presents one of Mondrian's many views of farms situated directly beside the Gein river — a configuration specific to this stretch of the Dutch agricultural landscape where farms were built right to the water's edge. The Gein was commercially as well as scenically important to the farms along it, and this painting, while primarily aesthetic in intention, also documents a way of agricultural life that was changing rapidly in early twentieth-century Netherlands. The reflective water surface and the farm's pale walls created the particular luminous conditions that drew him back repeatedly.

The farm is positioned at or near the water's edge, its reflection creating a doubled image in the still river below. The composition is horizontally organised — farm, water, and sky in parallel bands — with the reflection zone providing the visual centre. Paint handling for the reflections uses downward, slightly irregular strokes that mimic water's gentle distortion.