Composition with Blue, Red, Yellow, and Black

Like many artists living in Paris in 1912, Piet Mondrian experimented with Cubism—depicting a subject from multiple viewpoints at once, often creating a fractured and disjointed image. After returning to Holland in 1914, he developed his own brand of abstraction, reducing natural forms to simplified geometric patterns. Unlike the Cubists, Mondrian eventually abandoned recognizable subjects even as a starting point, adopting instead a rational and intellectual style that he called Neo-Plasticism.