De Stijl

Stijl, de

Stijl, de (də stīl) [Du.,=the style], Dutch nonfigurative art movement, also called neoplasticism. In 1917 a group of artists, architects, and poets was organized under the name de Stijl, and a journal of the same name was initiated. The leaders of the movement were the artists Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. They advocated a purification of art, eliminating subject matter in favor of vertical and horizontal elements, and the use of primary colors and noncolors. Their austerity of expression influenced architects, principally J. J. P. Oud and Gerrit Rietveld. The movement lasted until 1931; in architecture a few de Stijl principles are still applied.

Bibliography

See study by H. L. C. Jaffé (1968).

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De Stijl

Term meaning “The Style,” derived from the name of a group of Dutch artists and the journal founded by the painter Theo van Doesberg in 1917; other members of the group included Piet Mondrian, Reitveld, and Oud. It was influenced by Cubism, and proposed an abstracted expression divorced from nature; instead, advocating straight lines, pure planes, right angles, and primary colors. It had a profound influence on the Bauhaus movement.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

De Stijl

 

an avant-garde group of Dutch architects and artists that was founded in Leiden in 1917 around the journal De Stijl (1917–28). The group disbanded in 1931.

The De Stijl artists advanced neoplasticism, that is, the rejection of the representational, social, and cognitive tasks of art and the turning to pure forms, generalized to the maximum degree. In painting the style led to a geometric form of abstract art, as seen in the works of P. Mondrian, T. van Doesburg (the group’s organizer and theorist), and B. van der Leck. The architectural style of De Stijl was marked by strict mathematical measurements and ascetically precise spatial composition; these qualities especially distinguish the designs of van Doesburg, J. J. P. Oud, and G. Rietveld. De Stijl architecture to some extent influenced the development of functionalism.

REFERENCES

Modernizm (2nd ed.). Moscow, 1973. Pages 130–38.
Jaffé, H. L. C. De Stijl, 1917–1931. The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art. Amsterdam, 1956.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

de Stijl

An architectural movement from about 1917 to 1931, which originated in The Netherlands, that placed emphasis on functionalism, rationalism, and current methods of construction, in contrast to historical precedent and traditional methods of construction. This movement had a significant influence on the development of Modern architecture.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.