DE Stijl (The Style)

In 1917, Piet Mondrian and artist/architect Theo van Doesburg founded the art publication “Magazine De Stijl”. As well as these two founders, the De Stijl-art movement included mostly Dutch artists and architects, including J.J.P. Old, and Vilmos Huszár, who were prominent members.

Mondrian launched his new art form in his long essay "Neoplasticism in Pictorial Art" (The New Plastic in Painting), which was published over twelve issues in the “Magazine De Stijl” (1917-1918). In this essay, Mondrian explained his art as: "a pure representation of the human spirit, art will express itself in an aesthetically refined, i.e. abstract form. Ideas should therefore take the form of a natural or concrete representation."

The “De Stijl” art movement was not the first abstract art form at that time. Artists who practiced abstract art included the painters Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Hans Arp, who previously expressed their non-objective art, often with geometric shapes. However, artists and architects who were linked to “De Stijl” art movement used a purer form of geometry, consisting of straight lines and basic geometric forms, largely reflected in the three primary colors red-yellow-blue and black-white-gray.