Oostzijdse Mill along the River Gein by Moonlight

This landscape clearly reveals how indebted Mondrian was to the Hague School as a young artist. A few years earlier, he had copied Paul Gabriël’s In the Month of July in the Rijksmuseum (on view in this gallery). Although the compositions resemble each other, the general impression in each case is entirely different. Mondrian modified the lines and colours in order to create a non-realistic, decorative painting.