Flowering (Blossoming) Apple Tree

Flowering Apple Tree is an abstract artwork from Piet Mondrian as part of an organic movement from a true likeness to full abstraction which occured over a period of several years.

One can just about picture the tree, once we are aware of the title of this painting, but it is significantly harder than in say, the earlier piece of Gray Tree. By that point the artist was already on his journey towards abstraction, though the tree itself is still fairly close to what we might imagine it looking like in reality. By the time of Flowering Apple Tree, the elements are more suggested at rather than being specifically included. He chooses a fairly bright colour scheme, with tones of purple, green and yellow, although they are all merged into the greys that transcend the overall composition to match the black lines of the branches and trunk. The abstract style pushes on further with Flowering Trees.

There is a larger image of the painting at the bottom of the page which will make it easier to understand and appreciate the detail used in this artwork. We see many curved lines which directly match his branches in earlier paintings but in this case he used the space between lines to add slightly different shades of colour, as if creating a matrix similar to his later pieces where squares of colour were placed in grids. Normally the colours would be more consistent and just reflect the background showing through between the branches, such as grass or sky from behind. You can only appreciate this by looking up close to the painting, then comparing to some of his Neoplasticist pieces, such as Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow.