Object Details painter Rogers Notes Huettel, William L., 2018. (Lower right:) (artist signature) (dated) signed The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian ...

In the painting “Cypresses,” the trees take up half of the canvas, and every non-tree part—clouds, a field, the moon—seems to emanate from their depths.

The treeless tree From 1890 to 1912, Mondrian painted dozens of trees. He started with full-color, realistic trees in context: trees in a farmyard or a dappled lane.

Tableau I by Piet Mondrian, 1921. [Image: Kunstmuseum Den Haag] When I saw Mondrian’s 1911 “Gray Tree,” I immediately recognized something about trees that I had struggled to describe.

In the field, 180 trees encircle a medieval labyrinth, like the one in the Chartres Cathedral in France. Six smaller “circlets” are made from branches pruned from cherry, apple and peach trees.

In real trees in nature, that number is usually somewhere between 1.5 and 3, depending on the tree. But in art, it’s all up to the artist and how they depicted their trees.