De stijl
De Stijl Dutch for "The Style", also known as neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917. In a narrower sense, the term De Stijl is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands.
De Stijl movement embraced an abstract, pared-down aesthetic centered in basic visual elements such as geometric forms and primary colors. Partly a reaction against the decorative excesses of Art Deco, the reduced quality of De Stijl art was envisioned by its creators as a universal visual language appropriate to the modern era, a time of a n e w, s p i r i t u a l i z e d w o r l d o r d e r. Led by the painters Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian its central and celebrated figures - De Stijl artists 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
Theo van Doesburg, (the three graces) 1917.
Theo van Doesburg was a Dutch artist, who together with Piet Mondrian established Neo-Plasticism, otherwise known as the De Stijl s c h o o l o f p a i n t i n g . Va n D o e s burg's most famous work experimented with geometric abstraction and archetypal forms. He was also a promin e n t a r c h i t e c t a n d w r i t e r.
Among the pioneering exponents of abstract art, De Stijl artists espoused a visual language consisting of precisely rendered 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 austere language was meant to reveal the laws governing the harmony of the world.
Piet Mondrian. Oil on canvas L o n d o n , Ta t e G a l l e r y
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While only horizontal and vertical lines were to be utilized in Neo-Plasticism, in 1925, van Doesburg developed Elementarism, which attempted to modify the dogmatic nature of the style by introducing the diagonal, a form that for him connoted dynamism
Contra-Construction Project, Axonometric theo van doesburg
De Stijl-inspired architecture, particularly by Rietveld and Oud, was built in the Netherlands throughout the 1920s, all of which, interestingly enough, seemed to defy van Doesburg's theory of Elementarism, instead utilizing clearly defined horizontal and vertical lines. De Stijl also had a major influence on Bauhaus architecture and design; several members of De Stijl taught at the Bauhaus, perhaps most importantly van Doesburg, who lectured there in 1921-22. De Stijl's geometric visual language, along with its architectural concepts such as form following function and the emphasis on structural components, would reverberate in Bauhaus architectural practice, as well as the global idiom known as the "International Style."
Red and Blue Chair by Gerrit Rietveld in 1917.
The Rietveld SchrÜder House—the only building realised completely according to the principles of De Stijl.
Giancarlo Marichsl de stijl Prof. Goncharuk