Introducing: De Stijl

De Stijl, meaning ‘The Style’ in Dutch, was the title of a journal and art movement founded by Theo van Doesburg in 1917. Piet Mondrian was its most famous member, but it comprised many other Dutch artists, designers and architects such as Bart van Der Leck, Gerrit Rietveld and JJP Oud. Guided by Mondrian’s theory of Neo-Plasticism, they rejected the idea of representation and sought instead to create an entirely abstract act. Neo-Plasticism stipulated the exclusive use of horizontal and vertical right angles, along with a limited palette of pure primary colours, white, black and grey. After the horrors of World War I, they believed that their aesthetic search for ‘the direct expression of the universal’ could also promote social harmony. Mondrian left the group in the mid-1920s after a falling out with van Doesburg, sparked by the latter’s development of a new theory called Elementarism that argued for the use of inclined lines. When the final De Stijl journal was published in 1932, it had already exercised a huge influence over the Bauhaus movement and the Modernist school of architecture known as the International Style. To this day, De Stijl still informs building and applied design around the world.