De Stijl

De Stijl

De Stijl is a 20th-century Dutch art movement, which was founded in 1917 by Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) and Piet Mondrian. The words in English mean “The Style” and is commonly known as Neo Plasticism. The artistic philosophy of the De Stijl movement was to espouse the ideal of spiritual harmony and order through pure abstraction and universality limiting itself to the essentials of form and colour. The movement aimed to distil art to a level of almost scientific precision and perfection. It featured simple visual compositions, concentrating on vertical and horizontal directions, mainly applying primary colours with black and white and using squares and rectangles. The style was asymmetrical and by the use of opposition achieved balance. In the styles three-dimensional works, lines are positioned in layers that do no not intersect so that each feature is independent and unobstructed by other features, for example, the “Red and Blue Chair”. The movement was heavily influenced by Cubist paintings and itself influenced the Bauhaus and Constructivist movements.

Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian (1872 – 1944) born in the Netherlands started off as a primary school teacher and painted on the side. He moved to Paris changed his name to Mondrian and disassociated himself from the Netherlands. His early works were influenced by Cubism but he wanted more. His work has become more dominated by geometric shapes and interlocking planes. He reconciled his paintings with his spiritual beliefs leading to his departure from representational painting. He wrote on his artistic theories in works called new plastic in painting. He excluded diagonal lines and the colour green from his works. He coined the new name Neo Plasticism and was a key contributor to the De Stijl movement.

Gerrit Rietveld

Gerrit Rietveld (1888 – 1964) was a furniture designer and architect. He was one of the primary members of the De Stijl movement. Some of the works that he is better known for is the Rietveld Schröder House, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site and the Red and blue chair which he created in 1917 and later redesigned it in the De Stijl style in 1918. His works have been noted to be a three-dimensional application of Piet Mondrian’s work. Rietveld maintained part of the De Stijl movement until 1928 when he removed himself to become involved in a more functionalist style of architecture known as either Nieuwe Zakelijkheid or Nieuwe Bouwen.

Theo van Doesburg

Theo van Doesburg (1883-1941) his philosophy in painting was that there was a higher spiritual level in painting originating from the mind and not everyday life leading him to propound abstraction. He was influenced by Piet Mondrian’s works, he saw them as a complete abstraction of reality. Doesburg was a promoter of the De Stijl movement. Doesburg’s art, unlike Mondrians featured diagonals. His talents extended into architecture, houses, interior design.

Cesar Domela

Cesar Domela (1900 -1992) was a Dutch sculptor, painter, typographer and photographer. He was a self-taught artist who developed a constructivist style. He was heavily influenced by Cubism but moved onto paintings with horizontal and vertical coordinates of lines and planes. After meeting with Doesburg and Mondrian he became part of the De Stijl movement advocating its fundamental principals. Like Doesburg he used diagonal to generate the synthesis of plane, volume and movement. His work straddled several mediums. Many of his works involved three-dimensional reliefs and included pieces of Plexiglas, metal, photomontages and cut outs from advertisements. Later he worked as a graphic artist in advertising and used photography and photomontage. After 1929 he developed his own features and characteristic of the artistic philosophy behind his works.