Doesburg
de stijl
Piet mo
ndri an
Theo Van
Doesburg
Piet mo
ndri an
Acknowedgements
My thanks to all the people who have helped me make this book.
Special thanks to Shahzaib Arif Sheikh and Kashif who helped me
in designing the book and also Ayesha Haroon and not to forget
my parents for acompanying me in all the hard times. And finally
my teacher Shariq Chhapra without him I would not have finished
this book.
contents
De Stijl
Piet Mondrian
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de stijl
The De Stijl, literally translated as the style was an art
movement founded by architect and painter Theo van
Deosburg in 1917 in Leiden. Other founders of the group
included the sculpture Vantongerloo, architect JJP Oud,
designer Rietveld, and the painter Piet Mondrian.
The group was intent on finding a new aesthetic of art and
principles. Mondrian who was also the groups leading
figure, published a manifesto titled Neo-Plasticism in 1920.
The movement spread through town planning, fine arts,
applied arts and philosophy. The De Stijl movement also
published a magazine between 1917 and 1932 and
provided and overview of the movements works and
theories and all other famous figures of the movement
took part in it. In the magazine Mondrian comments that
the pure plastic vision should build a new society,
in the same way that in art it has built a new plasticism.
Artists of the De Stijl movement saw art as a collective
approach, and as a language that went beyond
culture, geography and politics.
Counter Compostion(1924) Theo Van Doesburg
Broadway
Boogie woogie (1942-43)
Mondrian made this composition in his
last days in 1942-43 in New York. It is also
one of the last work of his collection and
some of the critics regarded it as his
Masterpiece. It is again a grid based
composition as his style of working
actually was. But this time instead of
using black thick lines he has used yellow
colored lines and has separated the
shapes using different primary colors in
the line, at the edges. Unlikely of his
previous work where he focused on large
rectangular planes divided by long
continuous lines, he zooms out this time
and made these rectilinear shapes into
much smaller forms.
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Cover of first
De Stijl Magazine (1917)
Theo Van Doesburg designed this cover for
the first edition of De Stijl Magazine in 1917.
Although Mondrian and Van Doesburg
both were good friends and part of same
of the same movement, Mondrian only
made natural paintings and abstract
compositions. Whereas, Van Doesburg
explored many other fields apart from only
making abstract compositions. This cover
design is an example of it.
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Cover of the
De Stijl magazine (1921)
Although Van Doesburg went to Bauhaus
school in 1922 but surprisingly this cover
which he made in 1921, still seems to be
inspired from Bauhaus because of the red
and black color palette together with the
negative spacing. Its a type based layout
and Van Doesburg has kept the design to
minimalistic as usual. The NB which stands
Nieuwe Bleeding(New Imaging), written
in bold letters and red color clearly works
as the focal point of the composition.
And again its a centralized and
symmetrical composition.
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Jibran Saeed
Publishing