A key figure in the international avant-garde, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was at once an extraordinary painter and art theoretician whose influence is as profound today as it ever was. After coining the term "Neo-plasticism", he pursued painting composed only of the most fundamental aspects of primary color (red, yellow, blue) against a grid of black vertical and horizontal lines and a white base background. Mondrian's vision was that this essential painting would help to achieve a society in which art as such has no place, but rather exists for the total realization of 'beauty'.