Hilton's work changed considerably in 1953. While in Amsterdam with the Dutch artist Constant, whom he had met the year before, Hilton encountered Mondrian's paintings first-hand. His immediate response to Mondrian and Constant was a simplification of his style as evident in the present work.

Hilton commented that 'the painter today is like the ancient alchemists: he is concerned not so much with visible reality as with reality tout court. His pictures are not a picture of the world but an attempt to change it' (see exhibition catalogue, Roger Hilton, London, Serpentine Gallery, 1974, p. 4).