e Stijl (in English generally pronounced /də ˈstaɪl/, after style; from the Dutch for "the style" – pronounced [də ˈstɛɪl]), also known as neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement, founded in 1917. In a narrower sense, the term De Stijl is... [more]
e Stijl (in English generally pronounced /də ˈstaɪl/, after style; from the Dutch for "the style" – pronounced [də ˈstɛɪl]), 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 founded in Holland, from 1917 to 1931.[1][2] De Stijl is also the name of a journal which was published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), propagating the group's theories. Next to Van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Vilmos Huszár (1884-1960), and Bart van der Leck (1876-1958), and the architects Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964), Robert Van ‘t Hoff (1887-1979), and J.J.P. Oud (1890-1963). The artistic philosophy that formed a basis for the group's work is known as neoplasticism — the new plastic art (or Nieuwe Beelding in Dutch).
Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order. They advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour — they simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions, and used only primary colors along with black and white. [show less]