De Stijl

Members of the De Stijl movement used abstract, geometric principles and primary colors in painting, sculpture, design, and architecture.

1917 - 1931

videos + essays

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De Stijl, Part I: Total Purity
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
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, 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
TateShots: Piet Mondrian

Can color just be color, rather than representing something else? Step into Mondrian’s studio to find out.

Mondrian, <em>Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow</em>
Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow

Mondrian believed that abstraction provided a truer picture of reality than illusionistic depictions of objects.

Piet Mondrian, <em>Composition No. II, with Red and Blue</em>
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.

Selected Contributors