De Stijl / The Style art movement explained in meaning and art characteristics of the movement
De Stijl explained in text quotes – the dutch art movement with main artists Mondrian & Van Doesburg
De Stijl, explained – the Style was from origin a Dutch modern abstract art movement; it started in 1917 with the art magazine ‘De Stijl’ published by the founders Theo van Doesburg & Piet Mondrian.
In the following text-quotes Jacob Bendien defines the De Stijl as a rather rigid modern art movement with as main striving to create an ultimate pure painting. De Stijl’s goal was to create artworks as far as possibly purified, to be able to serve as an art expression of the universal powers of life. The Style-group had a huge impact on later modern abstract painting, architecture and design; ed.
These selected art-quotes on De Stijl art movement are taken from “Trends in the Present Day Art of Painting”, by Dutch art-critic Jacob Bendien. Editor, Fons Heijnsbroek – translation, Anne Porcelijn.
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’Composition II’, Theo van Doesburg c. 1917 |
DE STIJL, The Style art movement explained, in meaning, definitions manifesto & history
– In ‘Cercle et Carré ‘ No. 2 from 1930 (The Style art magazine, published in Paris), Mondrian writes:
‘Until now, man has let himself be lulled to sleep by pathetic lyric. That is why it is so fatal for the evolution of man, for all his activities, his necessary fight for equilibrium. On the other hand it has overfilled man with tragedy: tragedy has been so overrated that people have had enough. And already this is visible, man tries to ban it from all forms of art. Thus art achieves its goal at last; it takes evolution to balance’…
– Not only in the manner of presentation, but also in the subject, De Stijl / The Style artists (a.o. Mondrian, Van Doesburg and the Belgian artist Vantongerloo, ed.) imposed limits upon themselves. They exclude all individual life – in general each special instance – and attempt to dissolve themselves to a more abstract and universal form of life, where there is no place for coincidental extras
– Why should something that no one finds strange in music, be impossible in the art of painting/sculpture? By comparing works of art that do not represent an object, is in our experience, the most fruitful way of exercising our receptivity for them
– As far as the subject is concerned, the aspiration of De Stijl / The Style artists is based on what they call the universal or cosmic, as opposed to individualistic artists.
* source, art quotes: “Trends in the Present Day Art of Painting”, Jacob Bendien, Rotterdam, 1936
– However, even in the expression of the subject, De Stijl artist subjects himself to the same strict means and his individuality will only be apparent in the way he uses these means. This can be seen in the proportions of the composition, the rhythm, the way he applies the paint and, as far as is possible, the colors
– All dominance of the individual is seen, without motivation by De Stijl artists, as erraticism and irregularity. There is a lot to say against this viewpoint
– However, De Stijl / The Style artists go even further than this. They exclude not only lyric and dramatic emotion, but every form of lyric and drama, including dry lyric and dry drama
– Their art is sculptural, the geometric means and their proportions and relationships, that also have to be well balanced, must speak directly to the emotion, and not indirectly as more or less abstract expressions of reality, as in the works by Cubists and Purists for instance
– At the same time De Stijl / Th Style artist sees all enclosed, geometric figures as ‘descriptive’, ‘individual” and, as such, too much preconceived ‘form.’ They feel themselves to be locked up in a figure, and thus cut off from the entirety of life, the universe
– The Stijl artist calls all these figures ‘form’. Form, open as well as enclosed is always an expression of imprisonment (lack of freedom), either a ‘bourgeois’ small-mindedness or a ‘natural’ conformity
– Generally speaking, they use only means that can be broken or destroyed. These are means that can be used together with their opposites, such as a straight line with its rectangular opposite. By using them both together, the individuality can be deleted. For this reason they are called universal means
– However, the rectangles and straight lines form square corners and squares in a Neo Plastic painting. In fact yes, the entire painting consists only of these figures, which seems to be in opposition to the idea of avoiding form. In our perception this appears not to be the case if the corner points of the interacting lines are extended and, if in doing so the square form is clearly dominated and destroyed by the thickness of these lines
– It is very clear that De Stijl / The Style artists recognize and use the plane, they do not try to make it into a three dimensional pseudo space, nor do they create a pseudo depth. Three-dimensional space would only increase the chance of creating form, and deceptive form at that. Not filling in the forms evenly would also work descriptively and would also obscure the color
– Not only do De Stijl artists limit their use of color to the basic red, yellow and blue, but, over time, they also use the three less and less together. Mainly they chose colors that symbolically contrast and therefore, when used together are more or less universals
– Reasoned / intellectual lines exclude all lyrical and dramatic emotion, reasoned/intellectual colors do the same. They exclude all mood. Only an active rather than passive disposition can reflect them. They do not carry us away as do the flowing differences of emotive colors. They stand before us, and each other, like naked facts
– The Neo-Plastici or De Stijl artists deny all unity through equality, they search for unity in contrasts, internally as well as externally. They achieve this unity by balancing these more or less reasoned/intellectual colors, by their positioning, stance and size
– There can be no question of flowing passively in a pleasant peacefulness. This work demands active participation with the strict working of the colors, which in turn demands a finer and more developed sense of colour
– According to the theoretical explanation of De Stijl artists – thankfully not in their work – when balancing the universal intellectual lines and colors, the question is not what sort of balance they express but, specifically that they express balance. However, balance of ‘pure’ contrasting means, because only then is the balance itself pure
– This is not an intellectual balance in as much as it could be constructed by intellect,… .. but, an emotional balance which only exists in feeling/emotion. De Stijl / The Style artists call this emotional balance (they speak of spiritual balance). The pure expression of cosmic, or universal balance. It would be better to call cosmic balance the subject of The Style artists’ art
– The De Stijl / The Style artists who focus entirely on the ‘absolute’, see life in all its facets as a search for balance between extreme contrasts: man-woman, objective-subjective, universal-individual, internal-external etc. Sometimes one is dominant and sometimes the other
– However, the ideal is that by allowing equal dominance, both extremes create an annulment of one’s own separation, thus coming from most sensitive tension to balance. For De Stijl artists, the true art of painting is nothing other than balancing the opposing universal means
– According to De Stijl / The Style artists, this painting balance is the detachment of our ripened individuality, which is living and feeling the awareness of its connection to universal life, – it feels itself absorbed by cosmic unity
– ‘Although born from matter, art combats this matter. This enmity grows the more the matter forces its way into the apparition. The most intimate art is dressed in the least capricious appearance’, wrote Mondrian in ‘Neue Gestaltung’, one of the Bauhaus art books page 36
– Even if the art -work first gains its value through the experience of the idea, the artist gives the impression that it is the fullness of the idea itself in which he loses himself. His awe for the idea and his need to serve the idea mean that he does not want to admit that the idea is only the inspiration of the moment, and that he himself is the creator of its fullness
– However, if De Stijl (The Style) artists’ material were to miss all expression and only serve to balance the planes, their art – even if vague – would express the peaceful enormity and nobility of their style principles, but not the full expression of a life controlled by this style
– We feel De Stijl / The Style artists sell themselves short with the assertion that they only express balance by relating mundane means (specifically planes and rhythm). This is a pity because their art gives many the impression that this unconscious self-accusation of spiritual poverty is actually earned, whereas the people who are able to let the work sink in slowly and more deeply know that this is absolutely not the case
– Also, the character of a colour is decided to a great extent by the material it is made from. Whether a red, yellow or blue are transparent or not, is of great importance. What remains of the purity of color?
– The expressive means used by De Stijl artists depend on their mutual context, and are not so expressionless that we would speak of ‘pure’ materials in the way De Style artist means
– But, first by using the symbolic working of their expressionist materials, these become impure enough to make the expression of a rich experience of an essentially meagre balance. De Stijl artists however, reject emphatically any symbolism. We don’t think this can be totally avoided
– Mondrian and Van Doesburg do mention the word ‘symbol’, however they use it only in the unfavourable meaning of allegory. Kandinsky is less afraid. He says in his Bauhaus art book ‘Punkt und Linie zur Fläcke’: ‘Of course the new science of art can only develop when the signs translate to symbols, and the open eye and the open ear make the way possible from silence to speech. Those unable to do that would be better off learning only theoretical and practical art.’
– What De Stijl artists call ”bringing the expressive material into balance”, is, in our view often unconscious, at least in Mondrian’s later work… … forming symbols together and deciding the strength and heaviness of their function
– If one or other symbol has only suggestive power, and if it dominates all other symbols available, De Stijl artist will never use this particular symbol….For instance, a large black square on a white background. This symbol, ignored by The Stijl artists, played a large part in work by Suprematist Malevich
– Of course, De Stijl artist does not admit that his style principle is only one of many. According to him, his style principle is the abolition of opposite values, De Stijl principle and also life principle. But the stamp of inferiority with which they threaten artists who think differently, does not stop us from seeing it as merely one form of style amongst many
– It is difficult to see De Stijl ever growing into a general life style. In any case we can establish that Piet Mondrian, the creator of De Stijl, and van Doesburg, whose work is only understood by so few, have directly or indirectly, greatly influenced architecture in nearly all countries
-NB: Theo van Doesburg’s Elementarism (his later art style, developed after his De Stijl period with Mondrian, ed.) is born from De Stijl, but particularly in essence it had undergone the most radical possible change
ART LINKS, for more information about the Dutch De Stijl / The Style art movement (Neoplasticism) & artists
* more history information on the modern Dutch art movement De Stijl / Th Style, on Wikipedia
* the artist Piet Mondrian describes in his quotes De Stijl / Style art movement = Neo plasticism
