DE STIJL

Bethany ReyesNovember 4, 2015

MAIN IDEA OF DES TIJL MOVEMENT De Stijl, which means simply "the style" in Dutch, emerged largely in

response to the horrors of World War I and the wish to remake society in its aftermath. Viewing art as a means of social and spiritual redemption.

De Stijl artists supported a visual language that consist of precise given geometric forms usually straight lines, squares, and rectangles and primary colors. Expressing the artists' search "for the universal, as the individual was losing its significance," this strct language was meant to reveal the laws governing the harmony of the world.

Ultimately, De Stijl's continuing fame is largely the result of the enduring achievement of its best-known member and true modern master, Piet Mondrian.

INFLUENCES

De Stijl movement embraced an abstract, pared-down aesthetic centered in basic visual elements such as geometric forms and primary colors.

Led by the painters Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian who

are painters were celebrated figures of De Stijl art they applied their style to a host of media in the fine and applied arts and beyond. Promoting their innovative ideas in their journal of the same name, the members envisioned nothing less than the ideal fusion of form and function, thereby making De Stijl in effect the ultimate style.

De Stijl artists turned their attention not only to fine art media such as painting and sculpture, but all other art forms as well, including industrial design, typography, even literature and music

TIME PERIOD De Stijl's influence was perhaps felt most noticeably in the realm of

architecture, helping to rise the International Style of the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1917, Theo van Doesburg founded the contemporary art journal De Stijl as a means of recruiting like-minded artists in the formation of a new artistic collective that embraced an expansive notion of art, filled by utopian ideals of spiritual harmony.

Adopting the visual elements of Cubism and Suprematism, the anti-sentimentalism of Dada, and the Neo-Platonic mathematical theory of M. H. J Schoenmaekers, a mystical ideology that articulated the concept of "ideal" geometric forms. The De Stijl aesthetic and vision was formulated in large response to the unprecedented devastation of World War I, with the movement's members seeking a means of expressing a sense of order and harmony in the new society that was to emerge in the wake of the war.

MAJOR ARTISTS &

ARTWORKS

Piet Mondrian

A founding member of the De Stijl movement, was a modern Dutch artist who used grids, perpendicular lines, and the three primary colors in what he deemed Neo-plasticism. Neo-Plasticism

Neo-Plasticism refers to the painting style and ideas developed by Piet Mondrian in 1917, promoted by De Stijl. Denoting the "new plastic art," or simply "new art,".

Composition A (1920)

Composition A (1920)

Artist: Piet Mondrian

Composition A whose title announces its nonobjective nature, making no reference to anything beyond itself is a good example of Mondrian's geometric abstraction before it fully matured within the framework of the De Stijl aesthetic. With its rectilinear forms made up of solid, outlined areas of color, While here Mondrian uses blacks and shades of grey, his paintings would later be further reduced, ultimately employing more basic compositions and only solid blocks of primary colors.

Oil on canvas - The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rome

Theo van Doesburg A Dutch artist, who with Piet Mondrian

established Neo-Plasticism, known as the De Stijl school of painting.

Van Doesburg's most famous work experimented with geometric abstraction and archetypal forms.

A prominent architect and writer. While only horizontal and vertical lines were to be utilized in Neo-Plasticism, in 1925, van Doesburg developed Elementarism,attempted to modify the nature of the style by introducing the diagonal- dynamism; "a state of continuous development."

Counter Composition V (1924)

Counter Composition V (1924)

Artist: Theo van Doesburg

Counter Composition V was first introduced in 1924, his signature works -embody the artist's wish to move beyond the confines of De Stijl with his introduction of Elementarism.

The titles of his “Counter Composton” refer to the fact that

the lines of the compositions are at a 45-degree angle to the sides of the picture rather than parallel to them, resulting in a new relationship between the composition and format of the canvas. He repeatedly ventured beyond the three primary colors, including a triangle of grey in addition to the primary colors, white, and black. At the time he painted this composition, De Stijl was finding its own unique voice: paintings, furniture designs, and buildings.

Oil on canvas - Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

A reconstruction of the dance hall/cinema designed by Theo van Doesburg: “Cinébal” at the Aubette in Strasbourg.

PERSONAL REFLECTION

PROJECT/ ACTIVITY Draw squares in diferent sizes with

diffderent colors In any direction you want.

REFERENCES Artwork of Piet Mondrian retrieved from

http://www.picsearch.com/Piet-Mondrian-pictures.html, on October 24, 2015.

Doig, Allan (2009). "Theo van Doesburg (Christian Emil Marie Küpper)". MoMA - The Collection. Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2015-10-24‘Picture of Theo Van Doesburg.’ Retrived from www.theartstory.org, on October 24, 2015

‘Synopsis of De Stijl.’ Retrieved from www.theartstory.org, on October 24, 2015

QUESTIONS