Landscape with four cows in profile

Landscape with Four Cows in Profile (around 1900), at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, organizes its animal subjects into a compositional frieze—four cows seen from the side, their forms arranged along a horizontal register. The profile view of cattle in a row had deep roots in Dutch animal painting, from the panoramic cattle herds of seventeenth-century masters to the more intimate groupings of the Barbizon tradition. The frieze-like arrangement emphasizes the cattle's form through silhouette and profile rather than through three-dimensional modeling, connecting the work to a tradition of decorative, profile-based animal composition with considerable formal clarity.

Four cows in profile create a rhythmic horizontal frieze across the lower portion of the composition. Mondrian organizes the animals through their profile silhouettes—the curved backs, raised heads, and spaced legs creating a visual rhythm that the landscape background frames and contextualizes.