De Stijl
Description
De Stijl (/də ˈstaɪl/, Dutch: [də ˈstɛil]; 'The Style') was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 by a group of artists and architects based in Leiden (Theo van Doesburg, J. J. P. Oud), Voorburg (Vilmos Huszár, Jan Wils) and Laren (Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck).
De Stijl was also the name of a journal – published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, poet and critic Theo van Doesburg – that propagated the group's theories. Along with van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszár, Bart van der Leck, the architects J.J.P. Oud, Jan Wils, Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van 't Hoff, the sculptor and painter Georges Vantongerloo, and the poet and writer Antony Kok. Read more ↗
Key Artists
Piet Mondrian
Co-founder and primary theorist who established Neoplasticism, reducing painting to straight horizontal and vertical lines and primary colors plus black, white, and gray.
Theo van Doesburg
Energetic co-founder, editor of De Stijl journal, and propagandist who later introduced dynamic diagonal lines through his theory of 'Elementarism'.
Gerrit Rietveld
Master architect and furniture designer who translated three-dimensional Neoplasticism into iconic furniture (Red and Blue Chair) and architectural masterpieces (Rietveld Schröder House).
Bart van der Leck
Founding painter whose use of unblended primary color patches directly inspired Mondrian before he parted ways with the group over complete non-figurative abstraction.
J.J.P. Oud
Chief municipal architect of Rotterdam and founding member of De Stijl who designed austere, functionalist residential housing estates emphasizing geometric clarity.
Vilmos Huszár
Hungarian-born founding painter and designer who created the cover logo for the first issue of De Stijl journal and designed geometric stained-glass windows and interiors.
Georges Vantongerloo
Belgian sculptor and founding member who created the earliest three-dimensional Neoplastic sculptures based on mathematical formulas and spatial block volumes.
Famous Artworks
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Fun Facts
Piet Mondrian was so purist about Neoplasticism's restriction to vertical and horizontal lines that when Theo van Doesburg introduced diagonal lines in 1924 under his theory of 'Elementarism', Mondrian officially resigned from the De Stijl movement in protest.
↗ Source: britannica.com
Gerrit Rietveld originally designed his famous Red and Blue Chair in 1918 out of plain, unpainted natural beechwood; he only painted it with primary red, blue, yellow, and black in 1923 after becoming deeply influenced by Piet Mondrian's paintings.
↗ Source: moma.org