Members of the De Stijl movement used abstract, geometric principles and primary colors in painting, sculpture, design, and architecture.
1917 - 1931
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De Stijl, Part I: Total Purity
The elements of De Stijl are the artist’s equivalent of the physicist’s building blocks: protons, neutrons, and electrons. With a bucket of each of these you could make anything in the universe.
De Stijl, Part II: Near-Abstraction and Pure Abstraction
"If one conceived of these forms as increasingly simple and pure, commencing with the physical visible forms of appearance, then one passes through a world of forms ascending from reality to abstraction. In this manner one approaches Spirit, or purity itself."
De Stijl, Part III: The Total De Stijl Environment
De Stijl believed its utopian aspirations would be achieved by creating total environments, over which the designer (not the inhabitant) had complete control.
TateShots: Piet Mondrian
Can color just be color, rather than representing something else? Step into Mondrian’s studio to find out.
Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow
Mondrian believed that abstraction provided a truer picture of reality than illusionistic depictions of objects.
Piet Mondrian, Composition No. II, with Red and Blue
This painting is purely abstract, but Mondrian hasn’t obliterated his own hand—step closer to see the brushstrokes.
