De Stijl

De Stijl movement began in 1917 till 1931 and it was born in the Netherlands. This movement had that abstract art with visual elements like geometric shapes infused with primary colours. De Stijl movement it’s artist envisioned it as a visual language that can be understood by everyone as its more compatible with the modern era which was time for a new spiritualist world. 2 important painter which contributed to this movement where Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. Important designers that were influenced in this movement Theo Van Doeburg, Piet Mondrian, vilmos Huszar, Bart van der leck , Gerrit Rievteld, Robert van Hoff.

This movement inserted the fundamentals in were geometry in straight lines, square and rectangles. The name of the movement De Stijl was taken from Gottfried Sempers. De stijl movement shows the simple designs but abstract when it come in architecture and painting as it uses a lot of straight horizontal lines and vertical lines and rectangular forms. There palette of colours that usually use in this movement were red, yellow and blue and the three primary colours, black white and grey which was a bit limited. In many designs of artists, they put lines which are vertical and horizontal but how they are placed are sort in layers which they never intersect each other. An example of this can be seen in Rietvel Schroder House and the Red and Blue Chair.

The foundation De Stijl began by a meeting between artists who after sometime they created this movement. After the 1920s the group started to change as other influences began to get in. Some of these influences were from the Russian constructivism and the Bauhaus movement but not all members in the group has agreed on this. Then after that Doesburg introduced the elementarism Mondrian has left the group.

When it comes to Music De Stijl was only focused on the influence of the composer Jakob Van Domselaer. This composer has influenced a lot the paintings and illustrations of Mondrian. This composer even if he influenced art work in de Stijl movement but he is still quite unknown and still he didn’t have any important role in the movement.

This movment was influenced by the important movement Cubism illustrations and their ideas where it come to geometric forms like a when doing a perfect straight line. Another influence that De Stijl got was from the Neopositivism. This movement also influenced other movements which were the Bauhaus style and the international style in architecture and the clothing and interior design. A thing that you can notice that this movement didn’t inherit the same guide of “ism” like for example Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism) and even it doesn’t meet the principles of any art school like other movements for example like Bauhaus.

Composition A (1920)

Artist: Piet Mondrian

This illustration by Mondrian is the best example to show geometric and horizontal lines and vertical lines and that abstraction.

Mechano-Dancer (1922)

Artist: Vilmos Huszar 
This illustration is the very firstly of Huszar you can see clearly the geometric shapes with a lot of vertical and diagonal long line.