De Stijl Art Movement
De
Stijl Art Movement
De Stijl is a Dutch Art movement that originally started as
a public magazine that was founded by two pioneers of Abstract art Piet
Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg. De Stijl (meaning style in Dutch) was
officially established in 1917 in Amsterdam (thertstory.org.2018). The De Stijl
movement of the Netherlands was partly influenced by the Dada movement, and the
leading painter of the group came up with the official term for this new style
of art which would describe the type of abstract art the De Stijl group
practised: Neoplasticism. Neo meaning “new” and Plasticism referring to the “form”
that art takes (Dan.2018).
De Stijl art movements humble beginnings like many other
Avant-Garde movements of the time, emerged in response to the horrific events
of World War One in attempts to revive its society again from the aftermath.
Viewing art as means of social and spiritual redemption, they embraced a
Utopian vision of art and its transformative potential (theartstory.org,2018). Other
members that belonged to the De Stijl art movement group to mention a few
included artist Bart van der Leck, Vantongerloo and Vordemberg Gildewart, as
well as the architects Gerrit Rietveld and JJP Oud. The De Stijl art movement
had one main goal: to create art that was as simple and as basic as possible
and ultimately universal harmony (the-artiststory.org.2018).
De Stijl
characteristics summed up include
· Geometric forms
· Usually straight lines, squares and rectangles
eliminating all traces of the of the artist personality
· The elimination of mixed colours in favour of
the three primary colours red, yellow, and blue.
· De Stijl removed iconoclasm from its religious origins,
eliminated nature, and replaced it with a more universal nature state of
utopian harmony (Willette, J.2011).
· Elimination of the elements of perspective and representation
· Adaptation of the visual elements of cubism and
supremacism.
· De Stijl encompassed a variety of artistic influences
and media namely fine and applied arts, architecture, urban planning, industrial
design, typography, music, painting, literature and poetry. Its goal being to
develop new aesthetics and skills that would be practised on the above
(theartstory.org.2018).
Artworks created by Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg
could be easily told apart because the techniques that they used slightly
differed from one another. Piet Mondrian (Figure 1)
unlike Theo van Doesburg (Figure 2) did not use diagonal
lines, nor the colour green (Dan.2018)
Figure 1. Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black,
Grey, and Blue (1921)
Figure 2. Counter-Composition in Dissonance 16 (1925)
Other
artists who were part of the De Stijl art movement
Old
versus New
Figure 3.
Red Blue Chair (1923), Artist: Gerrit Rietveld
The artwork (Figure 3) titled the Red Blue Chair
was originally designed in 1918 but fully realized in 1923, designed and
created by artist Gerrit Rietveld. Rietveld envisioned a chair that could be
played around with and at the same time transformed the space around it. With
that in mind he created a chair consisting of rectilinear volumes (squares and
rectangles), planes and lines that interact in unique ways, and yet managing to
avoid intersection, he incorporated the primary
colours of De Stijl scheme red and
blue, he emphasised in the sense that the chair is human made by
avoiding the usage of natural form, which furniture designers would tend to
favour in order to reveal the idea of physical comfort and convenience. Rietveld
ensured that the assembling of this chair could be achieved easily by using
light and easy to use material such as standard lumber sizes, thus therefore
also resembled his goal of creating a piece of furniture that could ultimately
be mass-produced compared to hand-crafted (theartstory.org.2018).
Modern
examples
Figure 4. Rumyantsevo Station in Moscow, courtesy of
Lebedev Studio January 2016
Architecture
De
Stijl was not just a movement applicable to only painting and creating
furniture, it also influenced architectural designs. Examples of De Stijl Architectural
designs included the Rietveld Schroder house in Utrecht in 1924, also the Eames
house (also known as the case study house No.8) in California 1949. De Stijl
artists such as Rietveld, Charles and Ray Eames achieved these architectural designs
by stripping all unnecessary adornment off the facade of the houses to show the
highlights of certain elements, as well as using vertical and horizontal lines along
with primary colours, and just like Mondrian did he’s paintings, architectural
artists tried to ensure that they achieve balance through asymmetry and
ultimately harmony. The De Stijl art movement has also influenced the 20th
century, for instances recently the Moscow Metro station Rumyantsevo, was
opened in January 2016, it adapted design composition from Mondrian and he’s artwork.
The Moscow Metro station features art deco typeface of the station name with a De
Stijl decoration done all throughout the station (Lafer, S.2018).
Figure 5. Mondrian “Victory Boogie Woogie”
(2014), courtesy of Gemeente Museum Den Haag, and Silverchair’s record album
cover for “Young Modern”, image from charms.co
Music
Piet
Mondrian was an artist that loved jazz and exploring the night life of the
cities he resided in especially New York, London and Paris. Mondrian’s last unfinished
painting “Victory Boogie Woogie” from 1944 is a reflection of his personality
and all the things he loved, ever since then several musicians have connected
and related their own music to Mondrian’s passions. Such musicians include the American
R&B vocal group Force MD who released a music video to their song “love is
a house” in 1987, in it the four band members dance and sing on top of white
rectangular shaped panels that change colour according to the rhythm of the
song. The image above is a 3d render album cover design for the music band Silverchair’s
“Young Modern” (2007) that was influenced by Mondrian’s unfinished artwork “Victory
Boogie Woogie”. The 3D album cover has similar characteristics to Mondrian’s
artworks, such as the usage of negative space, the usage of primary colours:
yellow, blue and red, as well as the featured square, rectangle geometrical
patterns and incorporated black bold outlines (Lafer, S.2018)
Reference
List
Lafer,
S., 2018. How Mondrian Has Been Influencing Pop Culture for 100 years.
[Online]
Available at: www.sleek-mag.com/2017/05/31/mondrian-100-years/
[Accessed
11 May 2018].
The
Art Story Modern Art Insight., 2018. De Stijl Synopsis How Mondrian Has Been
Influencing Pop Culture for 100 years.
[Online]
Available at: www.theartstory.org/movement-de-stijl.htm
[Accessed
11 May 2018].
Willette,
J., 2011. DE STIJL
1917-1931.
[Online]
Available at: www. arthistoryunstuffed.com/de-stijl/
[Accessed
11 May 2018].
The-artists.org., 2014. De Stijl (movement, 1917-1931).
[Online]
Available at: www. the-artists.org/artistsbymovement/de-Stijl
[Accessed
12 May 2018].
The
Art Term., 2018. De Stijl
[Online]
Available at: www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/de-stijl
[Accessed
13 May 2018].
Dan.,
2018. The De Stijl Art
Movement (also known as Neo-Plasticism)
[Online]
Available at: www. emptyeasel.com/2007/10/23/the-de-stijl-art-movement-also-known-as-neo-plasticism/
[Accessed
11 May 2018].
The
Geometry Junkyard., 2018. Rectilinear Geometry.
[Online]
Available at: www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/rect.html
[Accessed
12 May 2018].
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet-artworks.htm., 2018. Piet
Mondrian.
[Online]
Available at: www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet-artworks.htm
[Accessed
11 May 2018].
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-van-doesburg-theo-artworks.htm#pnt_6., 2018. Theo
van Doesburg.
[Online]
Available at: www.theartstory.org/artist-van-doesburg-theo-artworks.htm#pnt_6
[Accessed
12 May 2018].
Rumyantsevo Station in Moscow, courtesy of Lebedev Studio., 2016. Architecture.
[Online]
Available at: www.sleek-mag.com/2017/05/31/mondrian-100-years/
[Accessed
11 May 2018].
Mondrian “Victory Boogie Woogie”), courtesy of Gemeente Museum Den
Haag, and Silverchair’s record album cover for “Young Modern”., 2014. Music.
[Online]
Available at: www.sleek-mag.com/2017/05/31/mondrian-100-years/
[Accessed
11 May 2018].
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