5 Euro of Netherlands 2022 - Piet Mondriaan

Piet Mondriaan is born on March 7th, 1872 in Amersfoort and grows up in a strict Calvinistic family. His father is a teacher and doesn’t want Piet Mondriaan to be an artist. Mondriaan starts education to be a drawing teacher, but he never let’s go of his only dream: being an artist. When he is 18 years old, he organizes an exhibition of his own work.

In the beginning of his career, Mondriaan usually paints portraits and landscapes. Around his thirties, he starts to develop an interest in theosophy: this is a discipline that searches for the common core of science, philosophy and religion. This is where Mondriaan’s interest for geometric shapes evolves: he sees them as the base of everything, despite the fact they don’t show as such in nature. Mondriaan’s art slowly moves towards the abstract. His search for harmony and ‘absolute’ beauty by compositions of primary colors, horizontal and vertical lines and even color areas eventually is his breakthrough. It makes Piet Mondriaan a true pioneer of abstract art.