Piet Mondrian was a dutch painter who grew up in a Calvinist family. His father was the local school headmaster. He taught Piet to draw, whilst his uncle - an artist - taught him to paint. He entered art school in 1892. He was introduced to the French Post Impressionists. His early paintings show this impact very clearly, but as his painting matured into a strictly abstract style it became clear that he was seeking more.

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Mondrian was also a keen philosopher and especially the work of the Theosophists, with their links to Buddhism. He always saw his artwork as expressing a sense of spirituality. The outcome of this was his development of the use of colour, especially pure primary colours, presented as rectangular shapes and bounded by black enclosing lines. In this he was representing pure harmony in the balance of the tension between form and colour.

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His work was a clear and early influence of the members of the Bauhaus and in the Minimalists of the 1960s period. The style that he had developed became known simply as "de Stijl" and was later used in the design of a wide range of consumer products.