In 1914, Mondrian was living in Paris and visiting the Netherlands when the First World War broke out. He either couldn’t or didn’t want to return to France and decided to remain in his home country. He stayed with his father in Arnhem, then with his brothers in Amsterdam, and finally spent a few weeks in Laren. After some ramblings, he settled there in January 1915. Laren was a sophisticated village, long known as a magnet for artists, and Mondrian had worked in the area before.
The move proved a productive one for Mondrian. In Laren, he saw friends, met new people and made important steps forward in his work. In the peace and quiet of the Gooi region and the isolation of the war, he pushed abstraction further and further, and it was here that he produced his first truly radical abstract composition.
To support himself and continue to pay rent on his Paris studio, Mondrian had to take on a lot of extra work; this included making portraits and copies. He spent most evenings pursuing a new activity: writing essays about his work. Most were eventually published in De Stijl magazine. On 1 June 1919, he gave up his studio and house in Laren and returned to Paris. He would never again set foot on Dutch soil.