Examines the history and influences of the De Stijl abstract art movement and analyzes the work of artists, including Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and Gerrit Rietveld
The name De Stijl, title of a magazine founded in the Netherlands in 1917, is now used to identify the abstract art and functional architecture of its major contributors: Mondrian, Van Doesburg, Van der Leck, Oud, Wils and Rietveld. De Stijl achieved international acclaim by the end of the 1920s and its paintings, buildings and furniture made fundamental contributions to the modern movement. This book is the first to emphasize the local context of De Stijl and explore its relationship to the distinctive character of Dutch modernism. It examines how the debates concerning abstraction in painting and spatiality in architecture were intimately connected to contemporary developments in the fields of urban planning, advertising, interior design and exhibition design. The book describes the interaction between the world of mass culture and the fine arts.
The ideas that later had such a marked influence on the architecture of Walter Gropius and others of the Bauhaus movement, and subsequently on commercial art and graphic design, were first advocated by the Dutch magazine De Stijl.
The Dutch magazine De Stijl, published from 1917 to 1931, was the focus of a remarkable group of advanced artists and architects who sought to combine their individual talents in collaborative projects that reflected their social and aesthetic ideals. The De Stijl Environment explores the group's approach to exterior and interior spaces and to furniture. It treats such themes as color, abstraction, and the corner, and describes the various collaborative efforts within the movement, in particular, the one that produced the De Stijl environment. Troy traces its evolution from an architecturally defined space to one determined by coloristic design. Among the painters discussed are Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Vilmos Huszar, and Bart van der Liek; the architects include Gerrit Rietveld, Rob van't Hoff, Jan Wils, J. J. P Oud, and Cornelius van Eesteren. Nancy J. Troy is Associate Professor of Art History, Northwestern University.
"In the early 1920s, a group of Dutch artists and architects influenced by some of the ideas of Dada, formed a movement called De Stijl (The Style). The Story of De Stijl presents work by Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Gerrit Rietveld, and the other members of this influential group, as well as archival photographs of the artists. The authors - experts in this seminal abstract style that encompassed painting, sculpture, architecture, interior design, and more - explore the evolution of the movement not just through traditional art-historical analysis, but also through anecdotes, conversations, articles, and other contemporary sources. With more than 325 colour illustrations, The Story of De Stijl makes clear the lasting importance and influence of this once avant-garde movement"-- Publicaciones Arquitectura y Arte.
There is no shortage of books about Le Corbusier, or Mies van der Rohe, or De Stijl. However, this book considers them in relation to each other, observing how a study of one can illuminate the works of the others. Going beyond a superficial look at the end-products of these architects, this book examines the philosophical foundations of their work, taking as its central theme the aim of universality, as opposed to the individual and the particular. Each of these three aimed at universality, but for each this concept took on a different form. The universality of De Stijl and artists like Van Doesburg and Mondrian resembled that of the universe itself: it was boundless, going beyond the limits of the canvas and seeking to abolish the wall as the boundary between interior and exterior space. In contrast, each of Le Corbusier’s creations was a self-contained universe within a clear frame, while Mies fluctuated between these two perspectives.
Hendrik Petrus Berlage, the Dutch architect and architectural philosopher, created a series of buildings and a body of writings from 1886 to 1909 that were among the first efforts to probe the problems and possibilities of modernism. Although his Amsterdam Stock Exchange, with its rational mastery of materials and space, has long been celebrated for its seminal influence on the architecture of the 20th century, Berlage's writings are highlighted here. Bringing together Berlage's most important texts, among them "Thoughts on Style in Architecture", "Architecture's Place in Modern Aesthetics", and "Art and Society", this volume presents a chapter in the history of European modernism. In his introduction, Iain Boyd Whyte demonstrates that the substantial contribution of Berlage's designs to modern architecture cannot be fully appreciated without an understanding of the aesthetic principles first laid out in his writings.