Born Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan in Amersfoort, Netherlands, Mondrian was raised in a strict Calvinist household. He began his artistic training under his father and his uncle, Frits Mondriaan, a landscape painter in the Hague School style.
: Around 1908, his interest in Theosophy began to shift his focus toward the mystical and spiritual aspects of reality, encouraging him to seek deeper truths beyond external appearances. The Evolution Toward Abstraction piet mondrian
Mondrian's style underwent a radical transformation after he moved to Paris in 1912, where he encountered Cubism. He began to dismantle objects into their core structural rhythms, as seen in his famous series of tree paintings, which gradually transitioned from recognizable forms like the Evening; Red Tree (1908) to the highly geometric Gray Tree (1911). : In 1892, he entered the Academy for Fine Art in Amsterdam
By the mid-1910s, he had removed curves and diagonals entirely, believing that horizontal and vertical lines represented the fundamental opposing forces of the universe—the "masculine" and "feminine" principles. : In 1892
: In 1892, he entered the Academy for Fine Art in Amsterdam.
: His early works were largely representational, depicting Dutch windmills, rivers, and trees in Impressionist and naturalist styles.